[fhs-discuss] tighten the use and intention of the "/var" hierarchy

[Roger Leigh]

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 11:23:20AM +0200, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> ]] Christoph Anton Mitterer 
> 
> | Defining the intended usage of /var is rather difficult, but IMHO a few
> | things are typical for data that goes in there:
> | a) the data is either NOT extremely important (e.g. logs[0], or
> | dynamically generated content, lock and pid-files[1]) _OR_
> 
> I consider logs pretty important, and lock/pid files will go to /run.

There's certainly a fuzzy area between "system" and "user" data, both
of which are put into /var.

A consideration that may become increasingly important is the
distinction between files managed by a package manager, and those
which are not.  With package managers implementing the ability to
do checkpointing and rollbacks e.g. with btrfs, it is important that
only package managed files are subject to rollback.

As an example, it would be generally undesirable for logfiles,
databases, mail etc. to be rolled back.  But package manager state,
packaged files upgraded in /var etc. would need to be.  Having both
of these on /var is undesirable due to the fact that the entire
filesystem would be rolled back.  [Maybe package manager state doesn't
belong on /var?]


Regards,
Roger

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