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

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Roger,

Roger Leigh wrote on Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:01:56PM +0100:

> But if the system can get to the point of having /var mounted
> without needing any writable filesystem, then /run is indeed
> not strictly required.

Exactly, that's very much to the point.

Since /var is supposed to be the file system to hold variable
data, we take care to not write to any filesystems before we
have /var mounted.


> So I think the remaining question is if we're going to
> phase out /var/run and /var/lock, and what the timescale
> for that might be if we do.

Obviously, i can't speak for Linux.
However, in OpenBSD, i'm not aware of any plans
to move /var/run to /run.
Regarding NetBSD, they seem to have /var/run, but not /run, see
http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/etc/mtree/NetBSD.dist.base
Regarding FreeBSD, things look similar, see
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/etc/mtree/BSD.var.dist
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/etc/mtree/BSD.root.dist

By the way, i don't see /var/lock/ in any of the BSDs,
only /var/spool/lock/, but that's used exclusively by
the UUCP subsystem as far as i can tell, or in other words,
it's mostly obsolete, too.

Yours,
  Ingo