On Wednesday 09 February 2005 18:53, Kanwar Ranbir Sandhu wrote: > Hi Everyone, > > Here's something I've had a bit of a problem figuring out. > > When someone says the "root filesystem", I automatically think of / and > everything installed on it (/root, /usr, /etc, /var and so on, excluding > of course /boot and swap) in one partition. > > I usually setup my systems like so: > > /boot /dev/sdXX > /root /dev/sdXX > /usr /dev/sdXX > /etc /dev/sdXX > /var /dev/sdXX > /home /dev/sdXX > /tmp /dev/sdXX > > Or better yet, use LVM. > > In this scenario, what would the root filesystem be? Everything else > that doesn't have it's own partition? Does it still refer > to /usr, /etc, /var etc., even though they reside on their own > partitions (I'm thinking it's this last one)? > > If you're wondering why I'm asking, I've been considering trying out > OpenSSI on Fedora Core 2. One of OpenSSI's neat features is it's ability > to have root filesystem failover. If the root node goes down, another > one can take over as long as that node has been setup to use the shared > root filesystem (it has to be installed on some type of network > storage). > > I've just been wondering what happens if the root filesystem is spread > across several partitions, which led me to confusing myself about what > "root filesystem" actually means. > > Thanks in advance. > > Regards, > > Ranbir > -- > Kanwar Ranbir Sandhu > Systems Aligned Inc. > www.systemsaligned.com the root file system contains all of the components necessary to get the system operational, the startup scripts and the programs they call and the configuration data, i.e., /bin, /etc, /sbin, /lib, /dev and the mount points for files systems used at run time e.g., /usr, /opt, /home, /var, things that may be in other partitions either local or NFS mounted. /root is root's home directory and really is not needed during the startup process. the root file system is sometimes confused with /, the root directory, and the / or root partition which may actually contain everything (except swap). paul -- Paul F. Almquist paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Eau Claire, WI USA
