[fhs-discuss] user-specific directories in /run

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Bruno,

Bruno Cornec wrote on Wed, May 25, 2011 at 01:05:59AM +0200:
> Roger Leigh said on Tue, May 24, 2011 at 08:34:23PM +0100:
>> Somebody wrote:

>>> The problem is the shared namespace and the fact that things might end
>>> up lurking around forever.

>> The sticky bit is set on /tmp.  What's so hard about securely creating
>> a session directory and setting XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to point to that?  Once
>> created, it will remain there, and accessible only to that user.  So
>> long as automated cleanup of /tmp doesn't take out the directory
>> (which would be utterly broken), I don't see what the problem is here
>> unless there's part of the picture I'm missing.

> I think I'm mostly in agreement with what you're saying. I have a
> question concerning this previous point.
> 
> Why not use /var/tmp, which is described in the FHS as containing
> "Temporary files preserved between system reboots",

Correct.

However, if i understand correctly, you specifically do *not*
want to preserve user session data across reboots.

> as there you are sure that no other process will clean it as it
> could for /tmp.

Incorrect.

Even though /var/tmp/ is not cleaned at boot time,
it may be cleaned periodically.

For example, each night, OpenBSD deletes files from /var/tmp
that have not been accessed for seven days, and empty directories
that have not be accessed for one day, with very few exceptions
that are kept indefinitely.

Yours,
  Ingo