How do you parition your system disk (vg00)?

[Alzhy]

I have this and would like to standardize on this as this is what we have on Linux and Solaris (minimalist partitioning..)

# bdf
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/root 4194304 688899 3286347 17% /
/dev/vg00/stand 251696 34240 192280 15% /stand
/dev/vg00/var 4194304 839008 3146173 21% /var
/dev/vg00/tmp 262144 1173 244665 0% /tmp

[Pete Randall]

This is our basic setup - of course it depends on what the system is used for - sometimes /opt or /var needs to be larger.

bdfmegs
File System Mbytes Used Avail %Used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvol4 200 72 120 37% /
/dev/vg00/lvol1 125 44 68 39% /stand
/dev/vg00/lvol9 1000 307 655 32% /var
/dev/vg00/lvol8 1540 785 709 53% /usr
/dev/vg00/lvol7 64 11 50 18% /tmp
/dev/vg00/lvol6 1000 706 275 72% /opt
/dev/vg00/lvol5 1000 516 456 53% /home



Pete

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

On HP , you need bigger /opt and /var

/opt is the place where most of the application get installed if you use swinstall.

/var is the place where logs gets written.

and rest vg00 is depends on how you want to configure. Because these lvols not going grow

-USA..

[Geoff Wild]

Preamble: VG00 - VG09 are internal disks, VG10 and higher are reserved for EMC.
VG00
The root volume group VG00 should be mirrored and only contain OS files.
Primary swap should be 1 x memory
/ - 140MB (HP Default)
/usr - 1 GB
/var - 1GB
/tmp - 512MB
/stand - 128MB
/var/adm/crash - 1 x memory + 512MB
/opt - 1GB
/home - 512MB with quotas (32MB soft, 64MB hard)
Note: /var/tmp should be a symbolic link to /tmp. /tmp should be 1777 (sticky bit).
VG01
/app - 512MB
/usr/local - 512MB
/app/admin - 512MB
VG02
File system swap
VG03
Applications


Rgds...Geoff

[Steven E. Protter]

[463#] mbdf | grep vg00
/dev/vg00/lvol3 1024 92 873 10% /
/dev/vg00/lvol1 500 40 410 9% /stand
/dev/vg00/lvol8 6000 830 4847 15% /var
/dev/vg00/lvol7 2048 1142 849 57% /usr
/dev/vg00/lvol6 1024 426 561 43% /tmp
/dev/vg00/lvol5 2048 1447 563 72% /opt
/dev/vg00/images 24000 17930 5974 75% /images
/dev/vg00/lvol4 2048 57 1866 3% /home
/dev/vg00/download 12800 8979 3581 71% /download


/download and /images are not needed.

/var was set based on install recommendations from HP, and then increased 50% because I don't have OnlineJFS and hate expanding /var in lm or single user mode.

swap which does not show is set to twice physical memory.

SEP

[Michael Steele_2]

Minimal HP size for a 4 gigabyte disk:

/dev/vg00/lvol1 - /stand - 100mb
/dev/vg00/lvol2 - swap - 512mb
/dev/vg00/lvol3 - / - 100mb
/dev/vg00/lvol4 - /home - 200mb
/dev/vg00/lvol5 - /opt - 800mb
/dev/vg00/lvol6 - /tmp - 700mb
/dev/vg00/lvol7 - /usr - 800mb
/dev/vg00/lvol8 - /var - 800mb

What I use:

/dev/vg00/lvol1 - /stand ??? 256 mb
/dev/vg00/lvol2 - swap ??? 2048 mb
/dev/vg00/lvol3 - / - 256 mb
/dev/vg00/lvol4 - /home ??? 1536 mb (* I put a lot of stuff in /home *)
/dev/vg00/lvol5 - /opt ??? 1024 mb
/dev/vg00/lvol6 - /tmp ??? 1024 mb
/dev/vg00/lvol7 - /usr ??? 1024 mb
/dev/vg00/lvol8 - /var ??? 1536 mb (* /var fills up with a lot of log data *)

[Alzhy]

Why do you guys need to seperate / from /usr (and possibly /opt)? On Solaris/Linux I only have / and /var plus of course the swap partition that I alwways locate on the first few cylinders of the disc. Application/home can be mount points under /opt.....

[Bill Hassell]

If these are simple workstations with one user, then you might use the above setup...except it would be very non-standard!

/ should be a very small partition (150 to 250 megs) and will never change in size (unless the sysadmin makes mistakes). And most important: / (and /stand) cannot be extended as they must be contiguous).

HP-UX follows the V.4 filesystem standards which separate /usr and /opt for system commands and applications respectively. Since most Unix boxes are seldom static, having /opt and /usr separate allows for planned growth.

For servers, stability in a growth environment is a very important requirement so the next change is /var: it is by far the busiest and fastest growing filesystem in the box, but making it vry large isn't the solution. Instead, managing high growth directories can be more reliable by splitting out various subsystems, depending on whether they are used and growing:

basic: /var
logs: /var/adm
crashdumps: /var/adm/crash
patches: /var/adm/sw
spooling: /var/spool
email: /var/mail
tempfiles: /var/tmp
app-logs: /var/opt

Not every server needs each directory as a separate lvol since it depends on what is actually running. But a good start is to create /var/adm, /var/adm/sw and /var/adm/crash since these can easily grow very rapidly.

The idea behind separate lvols is to keep the system running even if a subsystem (like spooling or email) fills it's directory. If /var is a single partition, simply sending a bunch of large emails to each server can very easily cripple the system as /var is critical for all processes including many HP-UX daemons.

[Alzhy]

/ 4GB
/var 4GB

has always worked for us. With /opt as a subdir of / we just create usually a mount point underneath it for applications that are expected to grow in requirements. Same with /var - which at 4 GB meets most of our needs. / at 4GB is basically enough as a full install of HP-UX (/ and /usr) rarely hits 1 GB - so that leave 3+Gb for local apps and /opt and even prepped up for HP-UX B.22.22 (;-> if it survives the Linux onslaught)

[Michael Steele_2]

Regarding: ".../ 4GB
/var 4GB

/ @ 4 gb is too big.

HP-UX split off from BSD around 10.01 and started using /stand for storing the kernel and system parameters. Both Linux and Solarus are more BSD flavored than HP which is more AT&T derrived.

/ at 512 mb is fine.

/var at no more than 2 gb is also fine. /var at / 4gb is a waste of disk space.

[Tim Sanko]

I have a group of large HP's
This is our layout of vg00

(We also are pushing 250 vg's
and HPUX limits us to 256 vgs)

Of the 1.9 GB on / I can clean up < 500 K.

/dev/vg00/lvol3 2621440 1920792 698088 73% /
/dev/vg00/lvol1 511672 58928 401576 13% /stand
/dev/vg00/lvol8 10485760 2936800 7490056 28% /var
/dev/vg00/lvol7 2301952 1541920 754160 67% /usr
/dev/vg00/lvol4 1048576 62624 978304 6% /tmp
/dev/vg00/lvol6 4194304 1153200 3017384 28% /opt
/dev/vg00/lvol5 5939200 3812568 2116232 64% /home

We have large V-Class 2600 servers. It all depends on what you need. Remember, it all depends on how your applications/system needs to run.

Tim

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Nelson,
What happen in case of bad block in /opt if you have one partition / , you will not be able to do anything.

If you have different / and /stand and /var and /opt if something is wrong in /opt you can still boot the system.

Sachin

[Dave Wherry]

Adding on to Bill's answer. I've had a system hang when a printer was down and jobs just kept creating spool files. It eventually filled /var and the system hung. By splitting the spool function out into a separate file system, only printing is affected if something like that happens again.
I also do the same thing with add-on or layered applications. I have created /var/opt/omni and /opt/omni for my OmniBack work space. I also have a /var/opt/ignite file system on my Ignite server.
It's just housekeeping. A place for everything and everything in it's place. If /var were to fill up I do not have to look as hard for what did it.

[Shannon Petry]

Used to be in Solaris they would recommend a big /var and /, but this has not been the case since release 8.

SWAP is mounted as /tmp in Solaris, so here is an immediate difference. However, you do not have to mount swap as tmp, but many still do.

I use the same basic template for Solaris, AIX, Linux, and HP-UX. Linux needs more /usr space, and an additional /usr/local.

/ = 150-200MB
/stand 128 (not used on Solaris or AIX, and is /boot in Linux)
/tmp = 512MB
/var = 1024
/opt = 1024
/usr = 1500
/usr/local = 1024 (linux only)
/home = 512

This is called space management. You could make a huge / and /var, but how do you know what is where?


Im writing this from an E220R right now, and looking at /var being 512MB used with no mail running and light prints queued, and /opt being 800MB I'm comfortable ;)

The down side to not using space management is that if a user fills up something, or the admin makes an error the system can become un-usable. I.E. try this:
tar cvf /home/junkme.tar /

Lets see how long your system with a huge / will be stable..

Now on a partition managed system, you can do the same thing and not lock up the system. Sure, /home will fill and you will get an error but the system does not lock or become un-available because of it.

These recommendations are for best practice. There are always exceptions to the rule and of course noone cares if you use best practices or not.

Exceptions to the rule are an Omniback server that I build would get 2GB of /var to handle the databases. An FTP server would have an additional partition created for FTP data, etc...

Regards,
Shannon

[Tim Sanko]

Nelson, et al,

Some applications require that they be part of the root partition.

Once you leave C2 security in the dust to have it accessible before the system mounts other drives it must be in /, and /stand...

I can tell you that I see little use of running out of space and/or rebuilding due to certain requirements.

Small system can be small.
Try 252 vg at 10240 /inode in the filesystems and watch /etc expand...

Is yours implementation a small one or a large one. Are there things required to be in /. You know your systems better than I do. Use your own judgement, the most expensive storage in your system is storage you need to allocate to prevent a problem.

Storage management of Many 8000 series symmetrix drives is not the high point of my day. I want to keep things running, not spending my off hours time modifying the system to keep it running.

[Tim Sanko]

Nelson, et al,

Some applications require that they be part of the root partition.

Once you leave C2 security in the dust to have it accessible before the system mounts other drives it must be in /, and /stand...

I can tell you that I see little use of running out of space and/or rebuilding due to certain requirements.

Small system can be small.
Try 252 vg at 10240 /inode in the filesystems and watch /etc expand...

Is yours implementation a small one or a large one. Are there things required to be in /. You know your systems better than I do. Use your own judgement, the most expensive storage in your system is storage you need to allocate to prevent a problem.

Storage management of Many 8000 series symmetrix drives is not the high point of my day. I want to keep things running, not spending my off hours time modifying the system to keep it running.

[Tim Sanko]

Nelson, et al,

Some applications require that they be part of the root partition.

Once you leave C2 security in the dust to have it accessible before the system mounts other drives it must be in /, and /stand...

I can tell you that I see little use of running out of space and/or rebuilding due to certain requirements.

Small system can be small.
Try 252 vg at 10240 /inode in the filesystems and watch /etc expand...

Is yours implementation a small one or a large one. Are there things required to be in /. You know your systems better than I do. Use your own judgement, the most expensive storage in your system is storage you need to allocate to prevent a problem.

Storage management of Many 8000 series symmetrix drives is not the high point of my day. I want to keep things running, not spending my off hours time modifying the system to keep it running.

[Alzhy]

I've read issues like "space management", waste of space, what if scenarios, etc. I don't want this to boil down to a religious kind of thing as it has happened in Solaris and Linux arenas. This is just again a preference on my part being OS disks are not supposed to be used for highly dynamic data. / filling up? That is why we have space monitoring tools. We've 73G OS/system disks that only have OS on them -- again following the / and /var (and swap of course plus tmp and stand on HP's). All apps/3rd party SW residing under /opt gets a filesystem underneath it. We make sure that no dir/subdir in / and /usr and /opt ever store anything that has the potential to fill up .. ie. logs or wideopen directories...

Fewer OS partitions versus the classic /, /usr, /opt, /var, /home, /...wahatevr.. it is your pick! I was just interested to know how it is in the HP-UX world - which I am liking BTW... hopefully it survives the Linux on-slaught and CF maintains the $$$ for its contnued development and blend Tru64's features with it...

Graci everyone!

[Rita C Workman]

On most systems I set
/var,/usr & /opt to about 1.5gb

On systems I do OBII, I set /var to roughly 3gb

Now I also tend to not put /home in vg00. That give me back a little space by doing it this way. But /home I set up on my disk array and since I use MC/SG, I put this directory in the package. That way when things 'failover'...folks files they saved in their /home directory comes over to the other box with everything else.

So far it's worked for us,
Rgrds,
Rita

[Shannon Petry]

Linux is following suite, as did Solaris a while ago. Used to be, Sun Admins were taught by Sun to make / really big, swap/tmp enough, and everything else who cares.

Looking at Redhat, they now are leaning more towards the separation of partitions.

I find that it's a safety valve, and a good control mechanism. I use home for local accounts, and use different methods of NFS for global accounts.

Anyway, I think partitioning is getting the favored status in Linux just because your Solaris classes are now preaching that space management is better than downtime.

It's hard to make a set of sizes that works on "most" systems, and we all know that exceptions to the rule will always be around. The numbers I gave you I use with Solaris 7-9, HP-UX 11-11i, Aix 4.3-5, Redhat 7-9. Irix was not very friendly with similar partitions as I remember, but I have not touched Irix since version 6.5


Regards,
Shannon