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

[Bruno Cornec]

Christoph Anton Mitterer said on Mon, May 16, 2011 at 11:09:14AM +0000:

> /var:
> - dynamically generated
> - purely internally used data (i.e. state data) but not things which are
> indirectly used and are actual/precious data (e.g. database server files)
> - things that can easily be lost (and regenerated)

Exactly. And typically I'd like to avoid backuping /var, except maybe
/var/spool.  Currently what I *have* to backup is crontab files (/var/spool/cron)
, /var/spool/mail, /var/spool/news, /var/lib/mysql, and /var/www where
most of the rest is useless from a recovery perspective.

Moving useful data from /var/spool to /srv/spool or something similar
would help as we could then just backup the full /srv and avoid /var
content at all.

> /srv
> more or less the opposite of /var
> - actual precious data

For me the real aspect is data separation, filesystem coherency
(possibility to have one broken such as /var due to logs filling it,
random temp data written to it, ...) where the other one is more under
control (backup being part of it).

Just my 2 centieuros
Bruno.
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