If I choose to do a fresh install of CentOS 6 with "replace existing Linux systems", will it also wipe out my /home directory? In the past when I've done this with another Linux distro, /home was not affected.
Or, would I need to do "fresh" install and then muck with partitioning using a Custom Layout? Right now, it's kind of looking like the latter to me, and if so, will I lose data?
I spent some time on the Forums and reading the RH documentation, but, no real answers to this specific question.
Thanks for any help.
On Sun, 2015-06-07 at 15:16 -0700, Kay Schenk wrote:
If I choose to do a fresh install of CentOS 6 with "replace existing Linux systems", will it also wipe out my /home directory? In the past when I've done this with another Linux distro, /home was not affected.
Or, would I need to do "fresh" install and then muck with partitioning using a Custom Layout? Right now, it's kind of looking like the latter to me, and if so, will I lose data?
I spent some time on the Forums and reading the RH documentation, but, no real answers to this specific question.
Thanks for any help.
Kay,
Yes it does replace your home directory. When I do a fresh install, I back up my home directory on a usb drive and then copy it back after the install. I think you can also 'muck' with the partitioning, but I have always taken a more conservative route.
Good Luck!!!
Greg
On 06/07/2015 03:25 PM, Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
On Sun, 2015-06-07 at 15:16 -0700, Kay Schenk wrote:
If I choose to do a fresh install of CentOS 6 with "replace existing Linux systems", will it also wipe out my /home directory? In the past when I've done this with another Linux distro, /home was not affected.
Or, would I need to do "fresh" install and then muck with partitioning using a Custom Layout? Right now, it's kind of looking like the latter to me, and if so, will I lose data?
I spent some time on the Forums and reading the RH documentation, but, no real answers to this specific question.
Thanks for any help.
Kay,
Yes it does replace your home directory. When I do a fresh install, I back up my home directory on a usb drive and then copy it back after the install. I think you can also 'muck' with the partitioning, but I have always taken a more conservative route.
Good Luck!!!
Greg
Thanks for the quick response! I don't like it but thank you! :)
On 06/07/2015 05:29 PM, Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/07/2015 03:25 PM, Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
<<<>>>
Yes it does replace your home directory. When I do a fresh install, I back up my home directory on a usb drive and then copy it back after the install. I think you can also 'muck' with the partitioning, but I have always taken a more conservative route.
Good Luck!!!
Greg
Thanks for the quick response! I don't like it but thank you! :)
. then you should give some thought to creating a partition for /home.
such gives you ability to mount the partition as /home and not have to worry about losing, backing up /home.
that is, you should keep /home backed up, but with it as it's own partition, you do not have to restore /home into a new install.
like that better? :-)
On 06/07/2015 04:52 PM, g wrote:
On 06/07/2015 05:29 PM, Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/07/2015 03:25 PM, Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
<<<>>>
Yes it does replace your home directory. When I do a fresh install, I back up my home directory on a usb drive and then copy it back after the install. I think you can also 'muck' with the partitioning, but I have always taken a more conservative route.
Good Luck!!!
Greg
Thanks for the quick response! I don't like it but thank you! :)
. then you should give some thought to creating a partition for /home.
such gives you ability to mount the partition as /home and not have to worry about losing, backing up /home.
that is, you should keep /home backed up, but with it as it's own partition, you do not have to restore /home into a new install.
like that better? :-)
Maybe some more information about my setup would help.
My situation is I have 7 separate Linux partitions and a swap area. One of the partitions is /home, so it's already in its own partition. I want to keep the partitions for CentOS exactly as I have them in terms of size, etc. In the past, even when I've done a "clean" Linux install, the existing system partitions were cleared and repopulated, and the existing /home was not touched in any way.
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
On 06/08/2015 12:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote:
My situation is I have 7 separate Linux partitions and a swap area. One of the partitions is /home, so it's already in its own partition. I want to keep the partitions for CentOS exactly as I have them in terms of size, etc. In the past, even when I've done a "clean" Linux install, the existing system partitions were cleared and repopulated, and the existing /home was not touched in any way.
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
Yes, since you already have a partition explicitly for /home you just need to specify custom partitioning before you begin the install, re-select all your partitions back to the same mount point (you will see them, they just need to be selected and have the mount point specified) and make sure that /home (and any other partitions you explicitly don't want wiped) are not selected for formatting. The installer will take care of the rest.
Make sure you are backed up just in case you muck things up, but it shouldn't be an issue.
Peter
On 06/07/2015 10:11 PM, Peter wrote:
On 06/08/2015 12:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote:
My situation is I have 7 separate Linux partitions and a swap area. One of the partitions is /home, so it's already in its own partition. I want to keep the partitions for CentOS exactly as I have them in terms of size, etc. In the past, even when I've done a "clean" Linux install, the existing system partitions were cleared and repopulated, and the existing /home was not touched in any way.
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
Yes, since you already have a partition explicitly for /home you just need to specify custom partitioning before you begin the install, re-select all your partitions back to the same mount point (you will see them, they just need to be selected and have the mount point specified) and make sure that /home (and any other partitions you explicitly don't want wiped) are not selected for formatting. The installer will take care of the rest.
Make sure you are backed up just in case you muck things up, but it shouldn't be an issue.
Peter
YAY! I think this is exactly what I did at one time. OK, I'll back up JUST in case, but I am hoping this solution plays out well. :)
Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/07/2015 10:11 PM, Peter wrote:
On 06/08/2015 12:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote:
My situation is I have 7 separate Linux partitions and a swap area. One of the partitions is /home, so it's already in its own partition. I want to keep the partitions for CentOS exactly as I have them in terms of size, etc. In the past, even when I've done a "clean" Linux
install,
the existing system partitions were cleared and repopulated, and the existing /home was not touched in any way.
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
Yes, since you already have a partition explicitly for /home you just need to specify custom partitioning before you begin the install, re-select all your partitions back to the same mount point (you will see them, they just need to be selected and have the mount point specified) and make sure that /home (and any other partitions you explicitly don't want wiped) are not selected for formatting. The installer will take care of the rest.
<snip>
YAY! I think this is exactly what I did at one time. OK, I'll back up JUST in case, but I am hoping this solution plays out well. :)
Good fer you. Btw, coming to this thread late, let me note that this is standard for everywhere I've worked: make a partition (or nfs mount) for /home, or /data, or whatever, so that when you did an upgrade to the next full release, you could say "install", rather than update, and "sure, wipe my / and /boot (but not anything else).
mark
On 06/07/2015 07:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote: <<>>
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
because your are playing with multi flavors, [i bet you like going to baskin-robbins for ice cream ;-) ] a solution for you would be what i did some years back and i was playing with diff flavors, my "/home" partition was mounted in new install as /home2 and i let installation setup a /home in /.
after install and booting it, as root i moved the newly created "user" home to the /home2 directory, renamed it to the 'user-flavor', then linked that back into the install /home and renamed it to "username" and changed ownership to "user"
which then gave me:
/home/username --> /home2/user-flavor
so that in /home2 i had:
/home2/geo-fc3 /geo-fc4 /geo-mandrake /geo-flavor-x /geo-flavor-y
i hope you can see how i did this. i am of terse thinking and do not always go into detail enough.
On 06/07/2015 11:05 PM, g wrote:
On 06/07/2015 07:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote: <<>>
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
because your are playing with multi flavors, [i bet you like going to baskin-robbins for ice cream ;-) ] a solution for you would be what i did some years back and i was playing with diff flavors, my "/home" partition was mounted in new install as /home2 and i let installation setup a /home in /.
after install and booting it, as root i moved the newly created "user" home to the /home2 directory, renamed it to the 'user-flavor', then linked that back into the install /home and renamed it to "username" and changed ownership to "user"
which then gave me:
/home/username --> /home2/user-flavor
so that in /home2 i had:
/home2/geo-fc3 /geo-fc4 /geo-mandrake /geo-flavor-x /geo-flavor-y
i hope you can see how i did this. i am of terse thinking and do not always go into detail enough.
Another creative approach and one I'd thought of also! But...not my first choice.
On 06/08/2015 11:34 AM, Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/07/2015 11:05 PM, g wrote:
On 06/07/2015 07:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote: <<>>
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
because your are playing with multi flavors, [i bet you like going to baskin-robbins for ice cream ;-) ] a solution for you would be what i did some years back and i was playing with diff flavors, my "/home" partition was mounted in new install as /home2 and i let installation setup a /home in /.
after install and booting it, as root i moved the newly created "user" home to the /home2 directory, renamed it to the 'user-flavor', then linked that back into the install /home and renamed it to "username" and changed ownership to "user"
which then gave me:
/home/username --> /home2/user-flavor
only thing that some might call a disadvatage is only thing that some might call a disadvatage is only thing that some might call a disadvatage is
so that in /home2 i had:
/home2/geo-fc3 /geo-fc4 /geo-mandrake /geo-flavor-x
only thing that some might call a disadvatage is only thing that some might call a disadvatage is
/geo-flavor-y
only thing that some might call a disadvatage is
i hope you can see how i did this. i am of terse thinking and do not always go into detail enough.
Another creative approach and one I'd thought of also! But...not my first choice.
did you do more than just think about it?
just what do you want for a 1st choice?
advantages of /home2 is you have a user home directory for all your flavors sitting in 1 partition that will not get erased because you are allocating it's own mount point when you install.
because you are using thunderbird for email client, you can set up Mail, ImapMail, News paths in there own director,
same applies to firefox bookmarks, passwords, certificates, etc. such as;
/home/moz/ /moz/firefox /moz/thunderbird
then link them to your 'flavor' user directory. same goes for your address book files abook.mab and abook-XX.mab, and other directories and files that are not path critical.
only thing that some might call a disadvantage is all moz progs will be same, unless you happen to need something in an add-on that is path specific.
there are many other progs that are not 'hard set' with path names.
On 06/08/2015 02:00 PM, g wrote:
On 06/08/2015 11:34 AM, Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/07/2015 11:05 PM, g wrote:
On 06/07/2015 07:25 PM, Kay Schenk wrote: <<>>
So, I'm not sure how to interpret what you said. Can I get the same results from a CentOS install using some combination of options?
because your are playing with multi flavors, [i bet you like going to baskin-robbins for ice cream ;-) ] a solution for you would be what i did some years back and i was playing with diff flavors, my "/home" partition was mounted in new install as /home2 and i let installation setup a /home in /.
after install and booting it, as root i moved the newly created "user" home to the /home2 directory, renamed it to the 'user-flavor', then linked that back into the install /home and renamed it to "username" and changed ownership to "user"
which then gave me:
/home/username --> /home2/user-flavor
only thing that some might call a disadvatage is only thing that some might call a disadvatage is only thing that some might call a disadvatage is
so that in /home2 i had:
/home2/geo-fc3 /geo-fc4 /geo-mandrake /geo-flavor-x
only thing that some might call a disadvatage is only thing that some might call a disadvatage is
/geo-flavor-yonly thing that some might call a disadvatage is
i hope you can see how i did this. i am of terse thinking and do not always go into detail enough.
Another creative approach and one I'd thought of also! But...not my first choice.
did you do more than just think about it?
just what do you want for a 1st choice?
I think Peter addressed my concern and responded in a way that leads me to believe a /home2 as you suggest is not necessary since it will be bypassed in terms of any installation, which is what I want.
advantages of /home2 is you have a user home directory for all your flavors sitting in 1 partition that will not get erased because you are allocating it's own mount point when you install.
I do not have and do not want one partition for my system (files). I have ONE flavor with many partitions and mount points. A rather "old school" approach that's worked pretty well for me all these years.
because you are using thunderbird for email client, you can set up Mail, ImapMail, News paths in there own director,
same applies to firefox bookmarks, passwords, certificates, etc. such as;
/home/moz/ /moz/firefox /moz/thunderbird
then link them to your 'flavor' user directory. same goes for your address book files abook.mab and abook-XX.mab, and other directories and files that are not path critical.
only thing that some might call a disadvantage is all moz progs will be same, unless you happen to need something in an add-on that is path specific.
there are many other progs that are not 'hard set' with path names.
On 06/08/2015 06:12 PM, Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/08/2015 02:00 PM, g wrote:
<<<>>>
just what do you want for a 1st choice?
I think Peter addressed my concern and responded in a way that leads me to believe a /home2 as you suggest is not necessary since it will be bypassed in terms of any installation, which is what I want.
true he went into detail. during install of os, the option of *custom* allows you to 'slice and dice' a disk into however many proportions of what ever size you desire.
custom allows creating partitions and setting mount points for _all_ partitions for what ever root path you want. this is how home2 is how to mount and get /home2.
advantages of /home2 is you have a user home directory for all your flavors sitting in 1 partition that will not get erased because you are allocating it's own mount point when you install.
I do not have and do not want one partition for my system (files). I have ONE flavor with many partitions and mount points. A rather "old school" approach that's worked pretty well for me all these years.
i never said you had to use one partition for any files.
multi partitions for / paths is not really "old school". it is a feature of "custom". you define what each partition is use for.
ie, partition for boot, partition for swap, partition for /, partition home, partition for usr, partition for var, partition for home2, partition for what ever.
On 6/8/2015 5:08 PM, g wrote:
ie, partition for boot, partition for swap, partition for /, partition home, partition for usr, partition for var, partition for home2, partition for what ever.
that model is not generally recommended anymore, at least not putting /usr on its own partition, there's just too many issues with that nowdays. I don't like putting /var in its own partition either as its all too intertwined with root. the problem with lots of little partitions is your freespace gets fragmented.
/home in a dedicated partition, sure. /var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
On 06/09/2015 12:19 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 6/8/2015 5:08 PM, g wrote:
ie, partition for boot, partition for swap, partition for /, partition home, partition for usr, partition for var, partition for home2, partition for what ever.
that model is not generally recommended anymore, at least not putting /usr on its own partition, there's just too many issues with that nowdays. I don't like putting /var in its own partition either as its all too intertwined with root. the problem with lots of little partitions is your freespace gets fragmented.
/home in a dedicated partition, sure. /var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
The real issue is that you cannot put /usr on a dedicated partition anymore as of CentOS 7. This is because /bin, /lib and /lib64 are symbolic linked in the /usr equivalents now. The (previous) purposes of having a separate /bin and /lib was so that programs and libs required at boot time could be run before the rest of the fs was mounted up if /usr were on a separate partition. Now they've been consolidated and symlinked so if you put /usr on a separate partition then the system won't be able to access critical apps during boot.
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and breaking that capability.
Peter
On 06/08/2015 08:29 PM, Peter wrote: <<>>
The real issue is that you cannot put /usr on a dedicated partition anymore as of CentOS 7. This is because /bin, /lib and /lib64 are symbolic linked in the /usr equivalents now. The (previous) purposes of having a separate /bin and /lib was so that programs and libs required at boot time could be run before the rest of the fs was mounted up if /usr were on a separate partition. Now they've been consolidated and symlinked so if you put /usr on a separate partition then the system won't be able to access critical apps during boot.
_but_, you can/could have a minimal /usr with required files for boot. then after the mounting, usr partition lays in.
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and breaking that capability.
there are a lot of 'thank yous' for fedora project. 1 of which made 3 of my drive lvm when they were ext4. :-\
On 6/8/2015 6:29 PM, Peter wrote:
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and breaking that capability.
that 'capability' was a holdover of the 1980s when disks were measured in megabytes, and memory in kilobytes, so large file systems were impractical.
On 06/08/2015 09:11 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 6/8/2015 6:29 PM, Peter wrote:
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and breaking that capability.
that 'capability' was a holdover of the 1980s when disks were measured in megabytes, and memory in kilobytes, so large file systems were impractical.
gee, you sure about that?
was tha 8 bit or 17 bit?
(BWG)
On Jun 8, 2015, at 8:16 PM, g geleem@bellsouth.net wrote:
On 06/08/2015 09:11 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 6/8/2015 6:29 PM, Peter wrote:
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and breaking that capability.
that 'capability' was a holdover of the 1980s when disks were measured in megabytes, and memory in kilobytes, so large file systems were impractical.
gee, you sure about that?
Yes.
And this is not a case of Fedora picking fights with the rest of the Linux world. /usr was already assumed to be on the root FS in Solaris, FreeBSD, OS X, and Cygwin well before Fedora made their decision.
Fedora’s late to the party, and CentOS necessarily even later.
was tha 8 bit or 17 bit?
Unix has never seriously been deployed on 8-bit systems.
Even oddballs like Xenix on 8088 and uCLinux on H8/300 are only “8 bit” because of the external address bus. These are just gimped 16-bit processors, not true 8-bitters.
Unix started out on a PDP-7, an 18-bit machine, before moving to a PDP-11/20, which was 16-bit, but much more powerful than the -7. The reduction in word size is a reflection of the rise of ASCII and power-of-2 data size standards, not indicating any real reduction in power.
I don’t know about *any* 17-bit processors.
Warren Young wrote:
/usr was already assumed to be on the root FS in Solaris, FreeBSD
I'm using both Solaris and FreeBSD quite extensively and, honestly, have never heard of that assumption. In fact, on the machine that I'm currently typing this message on, the file systems look like this:
# uname -sr; mount -t ufs FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE /dev/da0s1a on / (ufs, local, journaled soft-updates) /dev/da0s1d on /tmp (ufs, local, journaled soft-updates) /dev/da0s1e on /var (ufs, local, journaled soft-updates) /dev/da0s1f on /usr (ufs, local, journaled soft-updates)
(Everything else, especially /home, is NFS-mounted.)
Patrick
On Jun 10, 2015, at 12:49 PM, Patrick Hess patrickhess@gmx.net wrote:
Warren Young wrote:
/usr was already assumed to be on the root FS in Solaris, FreeBSD
I'm using both Solaris and FreeBSD quite extensively and, honestly, have never heard of that assumption.
I don’t have a “real” Solaris installation here to try, but the OpenIndiana, DilOS and SmartOS forks of OpenSolaris all symlink /bin to /usr/bin. I expect the same is true of Solaris 11, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Solaris 10 still kept /usr separate, given its 2005 release date.
As for FreeBSD, I’m basing that on the fact that the last time I tried moving /usr to a ZFS volume, back in the days when it could only boot to UFS, the system couldn’t even boot into single user mode. I had to reinstall the OS to fix that box.
I suspect if I tried UFS-root + ZFS-/usr again today, on a 10.1 box, it would succeed as a side effect of the root-on-ZFS support, but only because it would allow /usr to come up early enough to allow the boot to proceed. I suspect if you nuked /usr, it again would fail to boot.
The bottom line is that we now live in a world where even the piggiest OSes will install with room to spare on a throwaway removable flash drive. The rationale behind /usr-free single-user boots is defunct.
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015, Warren Young wrote:
I don’t have a “real” Solaris installation here to try, but the OpenIndiana, DilOS and SmartOS forks of OpenSolaris all symlink /bin to /usr/bin. I expect the same is true of Solaris 11, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Solaris 10 still kept /usr separate, given its 2005 release date.
# uname -a SunOS host 5.10 Generic_150401-17 i86pc i386 i86pc # ls -ld /bin lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Oct 15 2013 /bin -> ./usr/bin
On 06/08/2015 06:29 PM, Peter wrote:
On 06/09/2015 12:19 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 6/8/2015 5:08 PM, g wrote:
ie, partition for boot, partition for swap, partition for /, partition home, partition for usr, partition for var, partition for home2, partition for what ever.
that model is not generally recommended anymore, at least not putting /usr on its own partition, there's just too many issues with that nowdays. I don't like putting /var in its own partition either as its all too intertwined with root. the problem with lots of little partitions is your freespace gets fragmented.
/home in a dedicated partition, sure. /var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
The real issue is that you cannot put /usr on a dedicated partition anymore as of CentOS 7. This is because /bin, /lib and /lib64 are symbolic linked in the /usr equivalents now. The (previous) purposes of having a separate /bin and /lib was so that programs and libs required at boot time could be run before the rest of the fs was mounted up if /usr were on a separate partition. Now they've been consolidated and symlinked so if you put /usr on a separate partition then the system won't be able to access critical apps during boot.
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and breaking that capability.
Peter
Just curious what happens in this case. Do the apps wait and/or retry until /usr is mounted or does the boot fail?
On Tue, June 9, 2015 10:51 am, Kay Schenk wrote:
On 06/08/2015 06:29 PM, Peter wrote:
On 06/09/2015 12:19 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 6/8/2015 5:08 PM, g wrote:
ie, partition for boot, partition for swap, partition for /,
partition
home, partition for usr, partition for var, partition for home2,
partition for what ever.
that model is not generally recommended anymore, at least not putting
/usr on its own partition, there's just too many issues with that nowdays. I don't like putting /var in its own partition either as its
all too intertwined with root. the problem with lots of little
partitions is your freespace gets fragmented.
/home in a dedicated partition, sure. /var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
The real issue is that you cannot put /usr on a dedicated partition
anymore as of CentOS 7. This is because /bin, /lib and /lib64 are symbolic linked in the /usr equivalents now. The (previous) purposes of
having a separate /bin and /lib was so that programs and libs required
at boot time could be run before the rest of the fs was mounted up if /usr were on a separate partition. Now they've been consolidated and symlinked so if you put /usr on a separate partition then the system won't be able to access critical apps during boot.
This change looks awfully unprofessional to me...
You can thank Fedora for making that rather pointless change and
breaking that capability.
Peter
Just curious what happens in this case. Do the apps wait and/or retry
until /usr is mounted or does the boot fail?
I for one still have /usr living on separate partition on CentOS 7 workstations which are few (do not and never will run servers under CentOS 7). And I have sixth field (fs_passno) 2 for /usr in /etc/fstab. Didn't have problems with these boxes so far. Though fs_passno should probably be changed to 1 (as for /) according to description of new layout (i.e. _all_ libraries and binaries now physically live in /usr).
Just my $0.02
Valeri
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On 06/08/2015 07:19 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
On 6/8/2015 5:08 PM, g wrote:
ie, partition for boot, partition for swap, partition for /, partition home, partition for usr, partition for var, partition for home2, partition for what ever.
that model is not generally recommended anymore, at least not putting /usr on its own partition, there's just too many issues with that nowdays. I don't like putting /var in its own partition either as its all too intertwined with root. the problem with lots of little partitions is your freespace gets fragmented.
i agree with you 100%.
op inferred that i told him to put everything in 1 partition, which i did not. so i was just telling him if he wanted to be 'old school' he could partition what every his heart desired. ;-)
for my 'base' os partitioning is /boot, swap, /, /home.
all additional installs are /, swap, /home. after install if/and install part 2 boot, i restart to base, i log in as root, copy grub.conf into /grub of base /boot as grub.conf-newosname. then i cut/paste lines into my main grub.conf. make notations in 'title' line. next i copy base /root files that customize user root so i have same 'root' operation across all installs. the i reboot to new install and set it up.
/home in a dedicated partition, sure.
only way i have done it from many years back.
/var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
if/when i set up a server.
On 06/09/2015 01:31 PM, g wrote:
/home in a dedicated partition, sure.
only way i have done it from many years back.
/var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
if/when i set up a server.
Servers are better off without a separate partition for /home. Unlike desktop installs which contain pretty much all of the user data under /home in a server install there isn't very much "user" data at all and most of the actual data is contained under /var somewhere.
That said, if you plan on having multiple users who will store some data in their individual /home directories then /home might be in order for a server, it all depends on your individual needs, it's just that on a server I don't automatically create a massive /home like I would on a desktop.
Peter
On 06/08/2015 08:35 PM, Peter wrote:
On 06/09/2015 01:31 PM, g wrote:
/home in a dedicated partition, sure.
only way i have done it from many years back.
/var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
if/when i set up a server.
Servers are better off without a separate partition for /home. Unlike desktop installs which contain pretty much all of the user data under /home in a server install there isn't very much "user" data at all and most of the actual data is contained under /var somewhere.
That said, if you plan on having multiple users who will store some data in their individual /home directories then /home might be in order for a server, it all depends on your individual needs, it's just that on a server I don't automatically create a massive /home like I would on a desktop.
"every server has a story". :-D
"if the foo shits, wear it". ;-)
On 6/8/2015 6:35 PM, Peter wrote:
On 06/09/2015 01:31 PM, g wrote:
/home in a dedicated partition, sure.
only way i have done it from many years back.
/var/lib/${DATABASE_OR_WEB_SERVER}, ditto...
if/when i set up a server.
Servers are better off without a separate partition for /home. Unlike desktop installs which contain pretty much all of the user data under /home in a server install there isn't very much "user" data at all and most of the actual data is contained under /var somewhere.
I tend to install my virtual host websites under /home/someuser/public_html where there's a someuser for each vhost. the default /var/www website is generally completely stubbed off and not even used.
On 06/09/2015 02:13 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
I tend to install my virtual host websites under /home/someuser/public_html where there's a someuser for each vhost. the default /var/www website is generally completely stubbed off and not even used.
That was actually one of the scenarios that I had in mind when I added the 2nd paragraph to my comment (that you snipped).
Peter
At Sun, 07 Jun 2015 15:16:45 -0700 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
If I choose to do a fresh install of CentOS 6 with "replace existing Linux systems", will it also wipe out my /home directory? In the past when I've done this with another Linux distro, /home was not affected.
Probably...
Or, would I need to do "fresh" install and then muck with partitioning using a Custom Layout? Right now, it's kind of looking like the latter to me, and if so, will I lose data?
It is not hard to do the custom layout. Just select the 'system' filesystems (eg /, /usr, /var, /boot, and the like) and select 'reformat as whatever (ext4 usually), and set the mount points to what they were. Then select the /home (and any other 'user data' type file systems) partition(s) and select 'use as is' and give the proper mount point(s). If you take your time and are careful, you won't lose any data, but do go ahead and do careful backups anyway. You *might* want to note down any special configuration information you need to preserve (eg static IP address, a list of custom software you want to have installed, and so on).
Basically the 'Custom Layout' is for two general cases:
1) you have an unformatted disk and you want to do something non-default with the partitioning.
2) you want to re-install and retain some non-system data partitions.
There is a third possibility where you want to have a multiple Linux boot system (this usually means using /boot 'as is' for the second+ install, often with the installer bitching about doing that, and it usually means having way too much fun fiddling with grub.conf later), although mostly these days, you just pick one Linux distro for your 'host' and run one (or more) 'other' linuxes as VMs.
I spent some time on the Forums and reading the RH documentation, but, no real answers to this specific question.
Thanks for any help.
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g -
Gregory P. Ennis -
John R Pierce -
Kay Schenk -
m.roth＠5-cent.us -
Patrick Hess -
Paul Heinlein -
Peter -
Robert Heller -
Valeri Galtsev -
Warren Young