On Monday 20 March 2006 02:11, James Wilkinson wrote: > Anne Wilson wrote: > > That's worth bearing in mind. It looks as though I ought to have a > > separate partition for /tmp. I need help, though, to add it at this > > point. > > One thing you can do if you have enough swap is to add a tmpfs /tmp. > That looks like > none /tmp tmpfs defaults,nodev,noexec 0 0 > in /etc/fstab. > > Data in a tmpfs may get stored in memory or may get swapped to disk: the > computer handles it in the same way as it handles any other memory. But > it *will* be deleted whenever the computer reboots. That means you don't > have to worry about clearing out /tmp: it will do it automatically. > > The nodev,noexec bits are security paranoia: the nodev bit means you > can't use device nodes[1] on it, and the noexec bit means you can't run > programs from it (which could be a problem in certain circumstances). > > Hope this helps, > > James. > > [1] You know that /dev/hda is a file on disk which *points* to your hard > drive? It only represents your hard drive in the same way that an icon, > a picture, represents a program? > > It's theoretically possible to have a /tmp/hda which points to your hard > drive in just the same way. > Thanks, James. Gradually, all the info I collect helps me build a better picture of what is happening, so yes, it will help. Anne
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