Subject: Re: /dev on tmpfs problem
To: Matthew Orgass <darkstar@city-net.com>
From: Steven M. Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
List: tech-kern
Date: 11/14/2005 03:27:02
In message <Pine.BSF.4.51.0511140256020.5028@vegeta.city-net.com>, Matthew Orga
ss writes:
>On 2005-11-13 smb@cs.columbia.edu wrote:
>> Given the amount of (justifiable!) complaining we already see about how
>> hard it is to get VM tuning correct, I don't think this is a good path
>> to follow -- it adds one more element of unpredictability to system
>> behavior. At most, I think that sysinst could look at RAM and swap
>> size and suggest that as the default -s option for /tmp.
>
> IMO, tmpfs would be more useful for /tmp as a caching file system that
>could use the directory it is mounted over as backing.
>
Perhaps, though a file system's size limit is often a useful firewall;
it can prevent a single misbehaving application from eating up *all* of
a system's rsources.
--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb