[SGVLUG] Newbie question

[Claude Felizardo]

On 4/5/06, K. Zachary Abbott <kzabbott at mypcbiz.com> wrote:
> Hi, all -
>
> I'm a newbie to the list and to Linux.
>
> I've been tasked with setting up Linux box for the primary purpose of
> running an app called PHPList.  This requires:
> *A Linux Server
> * Apache Webserver
> * PHP version 4.3.x (or higher)
> * Mysql database server (version 3.23 or up)
>
> I have RHE 4WS which includes rpms for Apache 2x, PHP and MySQL, and
> I've been reading Mark Sobell's "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux" and
> have figured out that I probably want to install SELinux, but I also
> thought it might be a good idea to create separate partitions for
> various things.
>
> My question is: with one 3GB SCSI drive and one 18GB SCSI drive, and
> knowing what I want to do, what partitions would you recommend I create
> and what sizes would you recommend for those partitions?
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Zachary Abbott

Using separate partitions is generally a good idea as long as you
don't box your self in.  TiVo mounts some partitions as read-only to
minimize possible damage to the file system if the power cord is
yanked.  It also makes it easier to try different distributions w/o
having to reformat your /home directories.  Another good reason would
be to prevent an errant process or a DOS attack from crashing your
server by writing to a log and filling up say /var.

As for actual partition sizes, that's an art and it really depends on
how much space you want to reserve for growth, /home, etc.  I change
how i partition things every time I rebuild a box. so I don't have any
firm recommendations.  I've tried LVM in the past but found it a pain
to set up.  Now I just use RAID-5  so i have more room to work with.

I usually like a dedicated /boot for multiple kernel images, /home,
and space for my samba shared areas.  I don't always create a separate
/var but then my stuff is not directly accessible to the outside
world.  i don't know how much space your phpList web app is going to
take up but I use apache and mysql as well and haven't seen it grow
much.  The backups take up most space.

That said,  Here's some sizes from a few machines I have access to:

my desktop at work running mandrake 10.2:
395M    /var
1.2M    /tmp
2.0G    /usr
395M    /var
7.2G    /home
22M     /etc
5.9M    /boot
6.0M    /bin
6.4M    /sbin
54M     /lib
24G      /.snapshots

my server at home also running mandrake 10.2  (I run apache, php and mysql):
2.2G    /var
5.9M    /tmp
1.2G    /usr
2.2G    /var
3.1G    /home
15M     /etc
7.9M    /boot
5.5M    /bin
8.4M    /sbin
33M     /lib
96G     /export
125G   /.snapshots

what heck is in my /var at home?    /var/ftp/pub?  oh oh...
oh, i had cached all the RPMs from the install CDs.  So it's like
200MB as well.


a dev box at work running RHEL3
size      used   Avail   Use%
1012M  532M   429M  56%  /
198M     26M   163M   14%  /boot
5.9G     4.7G    952M  84%  /usr
4.0G    281M    3.5G     8%  /var
*         /home   -- nfs

server at a webhosting site running mdk i think:
size     used     avail   use%
238M   126M    113M   53%    /
38M       12M      24M   33%    /boot
5.5G     5.3G    256M   96%   /home
1.5G    869M   656M   57%   /usr
756M   276M    481M   37%   /var
5.5G     5.3G    256M   96%   /var/www

I'm guessing the web and mysql stuff is linked to stuff in /home.  not
sure as i don't have read access to those areas.

sorry i wasn't able to give you a direct answer but hopefully these
numbers will help you decided what not to do.

claude