UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

hi

I'm just wondering, when you use tmpfs on your machines: servers & clients?

tmpfs is used in cases where you want to save temporary data which you do not want to be persistent over a reboot. Solaris uses tmpfs for /tmp.

Thx, but are you using tmpfs on your machines with unix and linux, installed on a really small storage devices, or when doesn't need to be persistent over a reboot?

tmpfs is not a persistent storage solution. But, not to forget, it takes space from swap area too when there's a shortage of real memory. I have seen it's used on some *BSD based firewalls to store configs, logs, etc. which do not need to be available after a reboot.

What makes you interested in tmpfs? Maybe I can help.

Thx again, I'll install a minimal Linux (Debian) with LXDE on a thin client with 2GB CompactFlash (CF) and 1GB RAM. Should I use tmpfs for /tmp, /var/(log,run,lock)?

If you are sure that you do not want to keep the log files for reviewing, you may go ahead with making /var/log as tmpfs. /var/run is one of the directories which need to be cleared during boot time. Files in /var/lock get deleted while stopping the services. So you are good to go for making these as tmpfs.

One thing I would suggest you that you put a size limit to these directories, especially /tmp with "size" mount option in /etc/fstab. Otherwise, you will find yourself out of memory if something dumps huge files in /tmp.

In my estimation, 2-5MB for /var/run, 2MB for /var/lock, 15-20MB for /var/log and 10MB for /tmp is more than enough for a box with considerable workload. It should suffice for a thin client.

Best of luck!

Thx a lot, it helps, but how to put size limit, for example to /tmp with "size" mount option in /etc/fstab?
Perhaps something like:

Code:

tmpfs       /tmp      tmpfs      rw,size=10m    0     0