Can /package be a symlink?

Can /package be a symlink?

[Lloyd Zusman]

My system has a small root partition and I can't easily repartition
my disks.  Therefore, can I make the /package directory be a symlink
pointing to somewhere on a different partition?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com
 God bless you.

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Laurent Bercot]

> My system has a small root partition and I can't easily repartition
> my disks.  Therefore, can I make the /package directory be a symlink
> pointing to somewhere on a different partition?

 Yes, of course. The only caveat is, as usual: make sure you don't
use any file in /package before you mount your filesystems, and make
sure you don't need /package in your shutdown sequence (to be able
to unmount the partition).

-- 
 Ska

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Paul Jarc]

Laurent Bercot <ska-supervision@skarnet.org> wrote:
> The only caveat is, as usual: make sure you don't use any file in
> /package before you mount your filesystems,

<URL:http://multivac.cwru.edu./fs/#tricks> :)

> make sure you don't need /package in your shutdown sequence (to be
> able to unmount the partition).

Remounting read-only might be enough.  I do my main packages
filesystem that way.


paul

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Lloyd Zusman]

Laurent Bercot <ska-supervision@skarnet.org> writes:

>> My system has a small root partition and I can't easily repartition
>> my disks.  Therefore, can I make the /package directory be a symlink
>> pointing to somewhere on a different partition?
>
>  Yes, of course. The only caveat is, as usual: make sure you don't
> use any file in /package before you mount your filesystems, and make
> sure you don't need /package in your shutdown sequence (to be able
> to unmount the partition).

Well, does any part of runit use anything underneath /package before
disks are mounted?  I start runit via /etc/rc.local.  It's my
understanding that /package is for building software only, but I really
don't know, and that's why I'm asking this question here.

Thanks.

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com
 God bless you.

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Paul Jarc]

Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> wrote:
> Well, does any part of runit use anything underneath /package before
> disks are mounted?

runit itself is in /package.  If the programs don't care if they're
moved, you could copy the ones needed for booting into /sbin.  Or use
<URL:http://multivac.cwru.edu./fs/#tricks>.

> It's my understanding that /package is for building software only,

The build directory is defined to also be the install directory.  It's
built in /package, and it stays in /package.


paul

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Stefan Karrmann]

Lloyd Zusman (Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 02:00:51PM -0400):
> My system has a small root partition and I can't easily repartition
> my disks.  Therefore, can I make the /package directory be a symlink
> pointing to somewhere on a different partition?

Have a look at <http://multivac.cwru.edu./fs/>.

-- 
Stefan

Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design
would be accurate.
		-- K.E. Iverson

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Lloyd Zusman]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:

> Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> wrote:
>> Well, does any part of runit use anything underneath /package before
>> disks are mounted?
>
> runit itself is in /package.  [ ... ]

Upon further investigation, I see that on my system, runit is guaranteed
to get invoked after all disks have been mounted.  That's because I
start it via /etc/rc.local, which is the documented recommendation for
FreeBSD.  My /etc/rc causes mounts to be done before /etc/rc.local gets
run.

I guess that means that it's safe for me to make /package be a symlink
to a directory on a different filesystem.


> [ ... ] If the programs don't care if they're moved, you could copy
> the ones needed for booting into /sbin.  Or use
> <URL:http://multivac.cwru.edu./fs/#tricks>.

Hmm ... I still need to peruse the info about this "fs" trick in more
detail, but after my quick scan of it, I get the gist of it.

If I ever switch to an inittab-like startup and want to use runit for
the majority of my daemons, I see how this trick would be very useful.


>> It's my understanding that /package is for building software only,
>
> The build directory is defined to also be the install directory.  It's
> built in /package, and it stays in /package.

OK, I see.

Thanks for this info, and especially for the details about this "fs"
trick.


-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com
 God bless you.

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Brian Reichert]

On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 06:29:31PM -0400, Lloyd Zusman wrote:
> prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:
> 
> > Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> wrote:
> >> Well, does any part of runit use anything underneath /package before
> >> disks are mounted?
> >
> > runit itself is in /package.  [ ... ]
> 
> Upon further investigation, I see that on my system, runit is guaranteed
> to get invoked after all disks have been mounted.  That's because I
> start it via /etc/rc.local, which is the documented recommendation for
> FreeBSD.  My /etc/rc causes mounts to be done before /etc/rc.local gets
> run.

For what it's worth, recent versions of FreeBSD have this to say,
from rc(8).

  "Typically, the /usr/local/etc/rc.d mechanism is used instead of
  rc.local these days but if you do want to use rc.local, /etc/rc
  still supports it."

That doesn't make you wrong, but there are other documented ways
of doing this...

-- 
Brian Reichert				<reichert@numachi.com>
37 Crystal Ave. #303			Daytime number: (603) 434-6842
Derry NH 03038-1713 USA			BSD admin/developer at large	

Re: Can /package be a symlink?

[Lloyd Zusman]

Brian Reichert <reichert@numachi.com> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 06:29:31PM -0400, Lloyd Zusman wrote:
>>
>> [ ... ]
>>
>> Upon further investigation, I see that on my system, runit is guaranteed
>> to get invoked after all disks have been mounted.  That's because I
>> start it via /etc/rc.local, which is the documented recommendation for
>> FreeBSD.  My /etc/rc causes mounts to be done before /etc/rc.local gets
>> run.
>
> For what it's worth, recent versions of FreeBSD have this to say,
> from rc(8).
>
>   "Typically, the /usr/local/etc/rc.d mechanism is used instead of
>   rc.local these days but if you do want to use rc.local, /etc/rc
>   still supports it."
>
> That doesn't make you wrong, but there are other documented ways
> of doing this...

Thank you.

Yes, my version of FreeBSD supports both the /etc/rc.local and the
/usr/local/etc/rc.d mechanisms.

I guess I can always move the runit startup from /etc/rc.local to
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/00aaaa.sh, or some such thing.

But in any case, both the rc.local and the rc.d mechanisms are invoked
after all of the mounts are performed, so it's still safe for me to make
/package a symlink to a directory on another file system, no matter
which of the two methods I use.

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com
 God bless you.