New Plesk Box - Question???

[webcanada]

Hey everyone:

I'm about to contact my ISP to set up a new box to install Plesk 7.5 on because my existing box is running low on HDD space, and I have a question.

What is the point of all these partitions in Unix? Does Plesk need them? Does Unix need them? (Sorry if this is a newbie question, but I'm not TOO familiar with Linux.)

I currently have three partitions (I think):

/dev/sda2 (4 GB)
/dev/sda5 (2 GB)
/dev/sda6 (26 GB)

One of the existing problems is that I'm running out of space on one of the partitions, which is causing mail and other problems. Wouldn't it be easier if there was just ONE partition?

If not, could someone suggest to me what I should recommend to our hosting provider for formatting/configuring the partitions? (I guess mainly the first two partitions, the third is the web sites, which should be "the rest" of the HDD).

Thanks,
Peter.

 

[jshanley]

What is the point of all these partitions in Unix? Does Plesk need them? Does Unix need them? (Sorry if this is a newbie question, but I'm not TOO familiar with Linux.)

I currently have three partitions (I think):

/dev/sda2 (4 GB)
/dev/sda5 (2 GB)
/dev/sda6 (26 GB)

It's to protect the operating system. Seperating out /var from /usr prevents your logs from filling up the entire disk and corrupting other operating system files. It also stops massive damage to your system if some user with "unlimited" disk space permissions uploads 200gb of **** and fills up the partition, because your /var and /usr is seperate from your /usr/local/psa partition... etc.

Completely running out of disk space is a bad idea on any operating system. Creating seperate partitions lessens the damage. Additionally, you can mount different partitions in different ways (for speed, for security, etc).

Well, you get the idea.

 

[webcanada]

OK, thanks, I think I understand.

Can someone suggest how much space I should allocate to the new partitions then?

Btw, can partitions be resized once Plesk is installed (ie. like you could with Partition Magic<G>).

Thanks,
Peter.

 

[webcanada]

Anyone? Anyone?

 

[serve-you.net]

First, I DO NOT recommend using partition magic on a server. It is flaky with non fat/ntfs partitions, and you really don't want to trust a dos program with your UNIX server now do you? All partition resizing utilities come with a risk, and it is just not wise to use them on a production server.

As far as partition sizes go, it's really your call. Having several partitions can be both good and bad. On the plus side, it makes migration of a certain file system easier. And it offers you more ability/control in securing certain filesystems.

The minimal setup should be something like (SWAP size would vary based on how much RAM is in the system. 2GB is generally more than enough for the type of stuff the server *should* be doing):

100 MB /boot
1-2 GB SWAP
The remainder /


A more broken up setup (on a Linux PSA server) would be something like:

100 MB /boot
1-2 GB SWAP
~5 GB /usr
200 MB /tmp
2 GB /var
2 GB /var/log
~5 GB /
The rest /home


Obviously this depends on your tastes, and how much disk space you have. The most important partitions to seperate are /home & /var/log. Either of these can fill up extremely quick, and if you don't catch it before it happens, it will crash the system. If they are seperate partitions from your root, the system can still remain up and running, and only the logging or /home data would get corrupted.

/tmp is good for security. You can restrict the filesystem a lot more when it's a partition, since this is one of the easiest ways for the skript kiddiez to get into your system (via a bad perl or php script loaded by one of your users).

Having multiple disks is also good, since you can physically segregate partitions on them.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[webcanada]

Thank you!