partitioning

[ndelo]

In general, what are the best linux partition sizes? What it the min/max that /, /etc, /var, /usr should or need to be. Do all of these directories need seperate partitions or is it best to combine some? I am setting up a box to learn how to better implememnt linux sercurty in preperation for a sendmail installation. Never haveing used Linux in a production enviorment, I haven't considered partition size and have always relied on auto allocate. My test box will have Mandrake 7.2 and has a 4GB drive. I plan to install the minimum packages availible. If anyone has any suggestions or knows of a good HOWTO, please fill me in.

[Shad]

Partioning is a personal thing that depends on the particular use of your computer. / is absolutely necessary. Everything else is optional. /var is primarily useful on servers that make use of a lot of logging. This way if something goes out of hand, you won't have gigs of space taken up and possibly be unable to boot. I personally use /var/tmp as an area for compiling from source code.
/usr is good to keep seperate because of potential corruption and keeps fsck time down. /usr/local is usefull if you install a number of you own programs, particularly if you don't want to reinstall when you upgrade. /home is useful for much the same reasons. If this is going to be a server, you really don't need to bother.

I have never seen much point to putting /etc on a seperate partion. I can see backing up the directory, unless this was a server and wanted to potentially cut down on fsck times. Of course if that was a concern I would advise using a journaling filesystem like Reiserfs over ext2.

With only 4 Gb to play with, I would suggest just 2 partions, swap and /. Instead I would make use of Directory size quotas. I am not terribly familiar with how toset that up, but I think there is a NHF on it, otherwise there is a HOWto.

Hope this helps some.

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Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life

[Linuxman]

Originally posted by Shad:
Partioning is a personal thing ...

With only 4 Gb to play with, I would suggest just 2 partions, swap and /...



I agree totally. If Linux is the only thing on your box, there is no need to create separate partitions except as identified above.

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ADOPTION not abortion. Proud father of an adopted boy.

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Ravens 27, Bungles 7
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[rstebb]

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http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/005381.html
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/009596.html
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Hope this helps.

[mattmorrow]

To get a very close estimate of how my client workstation partitions should be allocated, I used RH, did a test install and chose the "Workstation" setup and let it do the partioning for me. Once the install was complete, I logged on and examined how much space was allocated and how much was being used (by using df and du, examining /etc/{fstab,mtab}, etc). From there I new exactly how to partition the drive on the real install. This also worked on the RH "Server" configuration.