Had you picked almost any other directory, there'd have probably been no
problem in doing so...
However, /etc is necessary very early in the boot process. (i.e. before
all the mounts are done.) Things like /etc, /bin, /sbin, /var need to be
in the root so that they can be used during the boot. Other things, like
/usr, /tmp, /opt can be moved into other partitions or devices /
filesystems, and can be set up in /etc/fstab to be mounted during the boot
process, without any harm to the system.
Doing so is just a matter of mounting the new filesystem at a convenient
mount point, cloning the directory structure over to it (tar is useful for
this), getting into single user mode, deleting the original files and then
mounting the new filesystem over the old directory as a mountpoint.
This is where I'm a bit lost. I have replicated the directory /etc as
follows:
mkdir /newetc
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /newetc
cd /
tar cf - ./etc | (cd /newetc; tar xf -)
How do I now convince the system to look in /dev/sda2/newetc/etc rather than
/dev/sdb1/etc when I do a cd /etc?
If you're not completely brave (reckless), mount the new filesystem over
the old directory first without removing the old files, and test it to be
sure everything is happy, before going into single user mode and deleting
the files. Testing saves much time and effort.
Thanks and regards
Cameron
