linux install question

following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

Okay, first of all a hint: Usenet is not a forum on Google Groups, so please use a proper newsreader if possible, and be sure to include enough quoted content so that the people dropping in on the thread later on still know what you're talking about.

Not all newsservers are updated at the same time, and often posts just don't show up on one's choice of newsserver. Quoted content is therefore needed for those who would wish to read or comment on the thread without seeing the original post. ;-)

This is what my system is currently laid out like...:

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted ondev-sda2 xfs 490M 225M 266M 46%dev-sda1 reiserfs 71M 52M 20M 73%bootdev-sda3 xfs 7.1G 4.7G 2.4G 67%usrdev-sda5 xfs 2.0G 25M 2.0G 2%usr-localdev-sda7 xfs 1.4G 321M 1.1G 24%optdev-sda8 reiserfs 997M 34M 963M 4%tmpdev-sda9 xfs 3.2G 973M 2.2G 31%vardev-sda10 xfs 19G 17G 2.6G 87%home none tmpfs 200M 0 200M 0%dev-shm

The last line denotes atmpfs,which I've included for POSIX compatibility reasons. Many people use atmpfsas the mountpoint for *-tmp* as well.

Newer GNU-Linux distributions and other UNIX systems also make use of a directory *-srv,* which can safely be split off from the root filesystem and which will contain a lot of stuff that's currently still installed under *-var.*

Worth mentioning perhaps is that in the overview above, *-boot,* *-usr,* *-usr-local* and *-opt* are mounted read-only during normal operation. This forms an extra step in filesystem integrity protection and security. Someone with root access could still circumvent this, but you'd be making it a little bit harder for him to drop a rootkit on your system. ;-)

Lastly, if you're interested in having your root filesystem set up as read-only, take a look here...:

It requires a lot of work - the root filesystem is normally written to at boot time and via the command history of the root user (in *-root-.bashhitory*) - but it's an extra step in system security, and you definitely want this if you're going to export your root filesystem over the network - e.g. for diskless clients.

Hope this helps... ;-)

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)