zfs discuss - Jul 2008 - /var/log as a single zfs filesystem --> problems at boot

I created a filesystem dedicated to /var/log so I could keep compression on the
logs.  Unfortunately, this caused problems at boot time because my log ZFS
dataset couldn''t be mounted because /var/log already contained bits. 
Some of that, to be fair, could be fixed by having some SMF services explicitly
depend on svc:/system/filesystem/local:default that don''t already, but
I get the feeling there''s more to it than that.

Any recent insights into /var/log being its own filesystem?

Thanks!
Dan
 
 
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Dan McDonald wrote:
> I created a filesystem dedicated to /var/log so I could keep compression on
the logs.  Unfortunately, this caused problems at boot time because my log ZFS
dataset couldn''t be mounted because /var/log already contained bits. 
Some of that, to be fair, could be fixed by having some SMF services explicitly
depend on svc:/system/filesystem/local:default that don''t already, but
I get the feeling there''s more to it than that.
>
> Any recent insights into /var/log being its own filesystem?
>
>   
I don''t know if the order has changed with ZFS boot, but I had found a 
way to put lofi mounts of ISO files in the vfstab, and then had a 
similar problem when I then moved those ISO''s so that they lived on a 
ZFS filesystem - the /etc/vfstab was processed much earlier than the ZFS 
ones.

So one solution you might try (It worked for me) would be to set the zfs 
mount point to legacy, and then create an entry in /etc/vfstab so that 
it gets mounted earlier in the boot process.

  -Kyle
> Thanks!
> Dan
>  
>  
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Dan McDonald wrote:
> I created a filesystem dedicated to /var/log so I could keep compression on
the logs.  Unfortunately, this caused problems at boot time because my log ZFS
dataset couldn''t be mounted because /var/log already contained bits. 
Some of that, to be fair, could be fixed by having some SMF services explicitly
depend on svc:/system/filesystem/local:default that don''t already, but
I get the feeling there''s more to it than that.
>
> Any recent insights into /var/log being its own filesystem?
>   
I think this is a symptom of another problem.  But you should be able
to setup the installation on a separate /var/log (using JumpStart or
LiveUpgrade) to get past this chicken-and-egg problem.  Alternatively,
you should be able to boot from CD/DVD and relocate the stuff in
/var/log to a /var/log filesystem.  Once the original /var/log directory
contents are gone, it should work ok.
 -- richard

Can''t say about /var/log, but I have a system here with /var on zfs.

My assumption was that, not just /var/log, but essentially all of /var is
supposed to be "runtime cruft", and so can be treated equally.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Akhilesh Mritunjai wrote:
> Can''t say about /var/log, but I have a system here with /var on
zfs.
>
> My assumption was that, not just /var/log, but essentially all of /var is
supposed to be "runtime cruft", and so can be treated equally.
>   
Not really.  Please see the man page for filesystem for the details.
 -- richard