Partitioning recommendation

UNIX BSD
1

I have an old Pentium box pieced together from parts, and the 2G hard drive in it is showing signs of a coming death. I have purchased an 8G HD to replace the old one, and I plan to install NetBSD 1.6.1.

The machine is to be used as a home server, with

  • Mail handled as fetchmail -> sendmail -> cyrus (currently its only function) and sendmail -> ISP[]print server (small load --- just a silly inkjet for home use)[]File repository via NFS and Samba.

I also want to be able to do kernel/OS compiles so I can keep up with security patches, etc. I'll be the only user logging in --- and that only for admin duties --- while my wife and kids will be using only the network services provided by this machine.

On the current 2G drive, I have 1G for /var (which seems to be where cyrus is depositing mail) .25G for /, .5G for /usr, .25G for /home (currently not being mounted because several sectors there are bad and prevent booting if it's mounted --- the first sign of trouble with the drive). My question is this: What partitioning do you recommend for the 8G HD?

2

It's probably a little perverse answering my own question, but I made the mistake of waiting till the last minute to ask:o . So here's the way I partitioned an 8.6G drive for the NetBSD server application I outlined:

  • 256M /
  • 256M swap
  • 3G /usr
  • 2G /var
  • all the rest /home

Any comments?

3

thanks !!

4

I'd imagine that you're finding that much of your /usr isn't being used (and possibly the same goes for your /var). Unless you are installing tons of stuff on this machine, I don't think you'd need that much space in /usr. I can see the reason for the large /var due to the fact that the mail server is using /var for spooling, but then again, if you manage your mail server and perform backups, you wouldn't necessarily need that much space...though I don't know your usage needs, so I could be way off.

Dave

5

It really is not neccesary to have multiple partisions any more. That was started by a physical size limitation of hard drives. Personaly I use just three partitions for my 240gb drive.
1) swap
2) /boot/vmrlinuz
3) everything else