[plug] directory places

[Craig Ringer]

smclevie wrote:
> I assume anything not specifically given a partition lies in the 
> bootable "/" partition ...

Indeed. You can remap directories using bind mounts so that they're on 
other partitions, but this is an advanced thing - most people don't use 
it, and unless you _know_ you're using it you won't be.

> Which means  bin, boot, cdrom, dev, etc, floppy, initrd, lib, mnt, opt, 
> proc and root are in the "/" partition.

Yep.

> Q.  How much space is generous for the bootable "/" partition?  Could it 
> blow out in future in some unforeseen way?
> (I have it at 200M @ the moment and it is 25% used but I have not got a 
> fully working system yet)

I rarely find more than 500mb is required if I have a separate /home, 
/usr and /var. If /tmp is separate too (or a tmpfs volume) then the size 
needed shrinks even more. If you use a /opt, you need to make a 
partition for it too, use a bind mount to put it in /usr, or free up 
more space in /usr. Most people never use /opt though, so you can 
probably ignore it. On my RH8 server at work:

# du -ms /etc /bin /sbin /lib /tftpboot /boot /dev
34      /etc
7       /bin
13      /sbin
133     /lib
7       /tftpboot
22      /boot
1       /dev

The total size of / is about 200mb. I'm using a 2GB / because with the 
disk sizes I'm using you can lose 2GB in the cracks, but 500mb should be 
plenty.

Also, note that partitions don't have to be mounted on /. It's not 
uncommon to keep a separate /var/spool/imap, /usr/local, 
/var/cache/squid, or other places with special purposes/needs.

Craig Ringer

Craig Ringer