[plug] swap query

[Bernd Felsche]

On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 11:18:09AM +1000, russ powers wrote:
> --- Matt Kemner <zombie at penguincare.com.au> wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, quoth Craig Dyke:

> > I'd be more inclined to allocate a portion of the HDD as swap
> > and then use the thumb drive as storage space (eg /home/)

> That sounds like a good idea, will it work? 
Yes.

> Can you put it into fstab?

Yep. But an automount config is easier. man autofs

Create an /etc/auto.home with
	loginname   -fstype=auto,sync       :/dev/scsi/usbstick-p1
creating a line for each login that you want to have auto-mounted.

Run SCSI aliasing to minimise serious embarassment. One trick I've
figured so far is that with the multi-slot readers that each slot
has same SCSI ID, but a different LUN.

The scsidev command will create the usbstick-p1 block dev and
others, depending on partition table, in /dev/scsi for the first
partition, etc. if your /etc/scsi.alias contains something like:

  lun=0 model="USB Card Reader" rev="1.05" devtype=disk alias="usbflash"
  lun=1 model="USB Card Reader" rev="1.05" devtype=disk alias="usbsmartmedia"
  lun=2 model="USB Card Reader" rev="1.05" devtype=disk alias="usbstick"

You may want to add more specific information such as the "SCSI" ID.

Edit /etc/auto.master to include
	/home     /etc/auto.home

Restart automount with a 10-second or so timeout to allow you to
logout and remove the USB drive after counting to 20. :-)

> You could do it individually and carry around /home/my_username.

Indeed.

> Could you then plug it into any linux box and boot or mount it and
> log in as my_username?

Plugin and login; yes.

BUT!!! NB: Also set your web browser cache files to "local" storage.
A symlink is usually required.

Last but not least; backup the removable media to something else
occasionally. e.g. Burn a CD once in a while.


Honest... I didn't want to write a HOWTO!

-- 
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