On Sat, February 13, 2016 5:57 am, Timothy Murphy wrote:> Devin Reade wrote: > >> I have a CentOS 6 machine that was initially installed as CentOS 6.4 >> in May of 2013. It's /boot filesystem is 200M which, IIRC, was the >> default /boot size at the time. > > As a matter of interest, is there any advantage today > in having a /boot partition? > I thought it went back to the days when the boot-loader > had to be near the beginning of the disk? >It is interesting to observe how perceptions are changing over time. Decade or two ago we were partitioning small then drives (thus loosing some of the space) just to separate regular users from those places vital for secure and reliable running of the system. Security. There days I bet there will be multiple experts who will bag me to death if I will try to offer any pro partitioning argument. This is just a very interesting (for me) observation. Valeri ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+1 Valeri. I agree that things have changed a lot! However, Devin, the answer to your question is that the /boot partition is a necessity in a LVM environment, which everything else is by default. The /boot partition cannot be a logical volume; it must be a raw disk partition with an EXT[34] file system. On 02/13/2016 03:19 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:> On Sat, February 13, 2016 5:57 am, Timothy Murphy wrote: >> Devin Reade wrote: >> >>> I have a CentOS 6 machine that was initially installed as CentOS 6.4 >>> in May of 2013. It's /boot filesystem is 200M which, IIRC, was the >>> default /boot size at the time. >> As a matter of interest, is there any advantage today >> in having a /boot partition? >> I thought it went back to the days when the boot-loader >> had to be near the beginning of the disk? >> > It is interesting to observe how perceptions are changing over time. > Decade or two ago we were partitioning small then drives (thus loosing > some of the space) just to separate regular users from those places vital > for secure and reliable running of the system. Security. There days I bet > there will be multiple experts who will bag me to death if I will try to > offer any pro partitioning argument. This is just a very interesting (for > me) observation. > > Valeri > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Valeri Galtsev > Sr System Administrator > Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics > Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics > University of Chicago > Phone: 773-702-4247 > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > -- > > > ********************************************************* > David P. Both, RHCE > Millennium Technology Consulting LLC > Raleigh, NC, USA > 919-389-8678 > > dboth at millennium-technology.com > > www.millennium-technology.com > www.databook.bz - Home of the DataBook for Linux > DataBook is a Registered Trademark of David Both > ********************************************************* > This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National > Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent to the > retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as well as > printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using it. If you > believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it > immediately. >
On 2/13/2016 12:19 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:> It is interesting to observe how perceptions are changing over time. > Decade or two ago we were partitioning small then drives (thus loosing > some of the space) just to separate regular users from those places vital > for secure and reliable running of the system. Security. There days I bet > there will be multiple experts who will bag me to death if I will try to > offer any pro partitioning argument. This is just a very interesting (for > me) observation.I still like making /home its own file system, and if I'm running a substantial (non-trivial) database server, it also has its own volume, quite likely on its own raid. -- john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz
On Sat, 13 Feb 2016 21:24, David Both <dboth at ...> wrote:> +1 Valeri. I agree that things have changed a lot! > > However, Devin, the answer to your question is that the /boot partition is a > necessity in a LVM environment, which everything else is by default. The /boot > partition cannot be a logical volume; it must be a raw disk partition with an > EXT[34] file system.It's even more relaxed: btrfs and xfs are also valid filesystems with grub2 on C7. If you do some extra legwork you can allow even more filesystems, most of the ssd / flash special filesystems a possible, as long as /boot (also as part of /(root) ) resides on a native disk partition. The oh-so-hyped LVM (all versions) is not a valid home for /boot without kompling the kernel AND grub2 yourself, and even then its much easier to move the kernels and initrds into the EFI partition (which MUST be vfat32, per spec). On bootloaders, well, for bios machines with just linux, or linux + win, nothing was as easy to setup and maintain as "lilo" But, for my new box, well it came with UEFI, and (e)lilo was just declared discontiued, and added on top I wanted more than one Linux Distro on the drive, so grub2 was the choice of the day. Secureboot with the choice of multiple Distos was easy with grub2, compared to choices for bootloaders. YMMV. Have a nice weekend, - Yamaban
On Sat, February 13, 2016 2:24 pm, David Both wrote:> +1 Valeri. I agree that things have changed a lot!_things_ changed? I wouldn't quite agree. It is people who have changed definitely. As far as things are concerned, they have changed a lot, but not fundamentally. Disks are huge, but they still are not infinite. Number of inodes filesystem can have increased multiple orders of magnitude, but it is still finite, and so on - one can go through the whole list of good practices dated some 15-20 years back. But we, people, have changed a lot. Valeri> > However, Devin, the answer to your question is that the /boot partition > is a necessity in a LVM environment, which everything else is by > default. The /boot partition cannot be a logical volume; it must be a > raw disk partition with an EXT[34] file system. > > On 02/13/2016 03:19 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote: >> On Sat, February 13, 2016 5:57 am, Timothy Murphy wrote: >>> Devin Reade wrote: >>> >>>> I have a CentOS 6 machine that was initially installed as CentOS 6.4 >>>> in May of 2013. It's /boot filesystem is 200M which, IIRC, was the >>>> default /boot size at the time. >>> As a matter of interest, is there any advantage today >>> in having a /boot partition? >>> I thought it went back to the days when the boot-loader >>> had to be near the beginning of the disk? >>> >> It is interesting to observe how perceptions are changing over time. >> Decade or two ago we were partitioning small then drives (thus loosing >> some of the space) just to separate regular users from those places >> vital >> for secure and reliable running of the system. Security. There days I >> bet >> there will be multiple experts who will bag me to death if I will try to >> offer any pro partitioning argument. This is just a very interesting >> (for >> me) observation. >> >> Valeri >> >> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >> Valeri Galtsev >> Sr System Administrator >> Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics >> Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics >> University of Chicago >> Phone: 773-702-4247 >> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >> _______________________________________________ >> CentOS mailing list >> CentOS at centos.org >> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >> >> -- >> >> >> ********************************************************* >> David P. Both, RHCE >> Millennium Technology Consulting LLC >> Raleigh, NC, USA >> 919-389-8678 >> >> dboth at millennium-technology.com >> >> www.millennium-technology.com >> www.databook.bz - Home of the DataBook for Linux >> DataBook is a Registered Trademark of David Both >> ********************************************************* >> This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the >> National >> Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not >> consent to the >> retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as >> well as >> printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using >> it. If you >> believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it >> immediately. >> > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On Sat, February 13, 2016 2:50 pm, John R Pierce wrote:> On 2/13/2016 12:19 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote: >> It is interesting to observe how perceptions are changing over time. >> Decade or two ago we were partitioning small then drives (thus loosing >> some of the space) just to separate regular users from those places >> vital >> for secure and reliable running of the system. Security. There days I >> bet >> there will be multiple experts who will bag me to death if I will try to >> offer any pro partitioning argument. This is just a very interesting >> (for >> me) observation. > > > I still like making /home its own file system, and if I'm running a > substantial (non-trivial) database server, it also has its own volume, > quite likely on its own raid. >John, you made my day! It is so wonderful to know I'm not the only one who still does this! Valeri> > > -- > john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
--On Saturday, February 13, 2016 03:24:53 PM -0500 David Both <dboth at millennium-technology.com> wrote:> However, Devin, the answer to your question [...]For the record, I didn't ask the question; I only posted the original heads-up. That was Tim Murphy asking the question. Watch the attributions, please. Devin