Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 03:53:26 -0500
Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

> Paul Colquhoun wrote:
> > >From my point of view, as an old Solaris admin, point 3) is the 
> > problem. If what-ever-it-is is needed during boot, it should be in 
> > /sbin or /bin or /lib If it is curently in /usr/* then it is in the 
> > wrong place, and that package should be modified. Later in the
> > thread you mentioned a bluetooth keyboard. This obviously requires
> > either a driver module, or a bluetooth server process, or similar,
> > which belong in /lib{32,64}/modules or /sbin Having udev able to
> > execute arbitrary code during boot looks like yet another large
> > security hole opening up. At least keep the code it can execute
> > tied down to the directories that were set up for this purpose. 
> 
> Picking a random post to reply to.
> 
> I been using Linux for a while.  Let me see if I understand this 
> correctly.  As I understand it, when a system boots it needs /bin, 
> /sbin, /lib*, and /etc and nothing else other than /boot for grub to 
> load the kernel.  Those directories are for booting the system and
> for "system" operations.  That is my understanding of how it has been
> since further back than I care to explore.  

Correct.

/ is often set up with only the minimal packages needed to guarantee
that single user mode will work correctly if the only thing mounted
is / itself.

> Things that are used
> after a system boots, such as things in the default runlevel or KDE,
> goes into /usr somewhere.  This is the reason that /usr and /var can
> be on separate partitions.  I have always understood that /usr
> and /var can be put on separate partitions for security reasons or to
> put some larger partitions on separate drives.  If I recall
> correctly, websites files are under /var.  Those can get pretty large
> quick I would guess.

Correct again.

/var is for "variable data", usually persistent data like log files,
databases, web sites, caches. It is writeable by root and system data
goes there (as opposed to user data).

> 
> So, now someone has decided to change this and it seems a few think
> this is nothing users should worry about.  I don't run a large server
> or anything but this still worries me.  I don't like the fact that
> the changes I had planned will now require me to also install one
> more thing to break.  My system is simple and I like to keep it that
> way.  The fanciest thing I have is a camera and a printer that I use
> once in a blue moon.  I want to put /usr on a spare partition because
> it is growing fairly quickly with the KDE4 updates and others too.
> Now, it looks like I have to do a whole redo of everything.
> Something that was simple just got complicated.

The truth is that with these changes your system will continue to work
just fine. Just like my laptops work just fine (I have one big
partition with another for /home on laptops).

My laptops don't need a separate /usr, but my servers do.

So it really looks like someone is forcing a change that makes udev's
life easier and potentially wreaks everything else in doing so.

> My choices are:
> 
> 1: move from Gentoo to something else.  I'm seriously considering
> this one.  If I can learn Gentoo, I can learn any distro!  LFS may be 
> excluded tho.

It's not a Gentoo change, it's a udev change. So you'll be stuck with
this new stuff regardless of which distro you go with.

> 2: Stick with Gentoo and hope this is corrected like hal was dealt
> with. 2b:  Go with LVM for everything and have a init* to boot.
> 2c:  Move /usr and use init* with no LVM.
> 2d:  Just redo my whole system with a larger / partition.

2e. Migrate to Windows where you too can have one partition on / and
have it fully supported by Microsoft!! OK, my sarcasm is showing.

> I liked my original plan better.
> 
> 1:  Go to boot runlevel.
> 2:  Mount what will be new /usr partition to some mount point.
> 3:  Copy /usr to the new partition
> 4:  rm the old /usr data.
> 5:  Mount the new /usr partition and add it to fstab
> 6:  Switch back to default runlevel and life goes on.
> 
> Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse
> it sounds.  I can't even imagine someone who runs some large server.
> Any hair left?  lol

I'm lucky, I can vote with my feet. Out of 140, I have two servers that
*require* Linux. One runs Sybase ASE, the other runs Oracle. Everything
else works like a bomb on FreeBSD. 

kthankxbyeudev, thanksfornotplayingnicely

Not everyone else is so fortunate though.

-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com