/var/ and /tmp/ directories

puishor · 06-24-2005, 12:46 AM

Hi!

My as far as I know /var/ directory stores variable size data , and /tmp/ directorie store temporary files.
Does this imply that if I delete the contents of both of this dirs , my system is going to function ok for now on ?
i.e deletion of /tmp/ and /var/directory contents does hurt the system ?
I thought it was better to ask before proceed

juanbobo · 06-24-2005, 01:06 AM

That would cause many programs not to work. /tmp is the temporary directory and /var is used to store log files, printer spools, and cache files which many programs access.

puishor · 06-24-2005, 01:22 AM

Quote:

That would cause many programs not to work. /tmp is the temporary directory and /var is used to store log files, printer spools, and cache files which many programs access.

This would happen even if I delete thees directory files at the very startup ( manually , after system finished the startup process ) ?

n0xvb · 06-24-2005, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by puishor
This would happen even if I delete thees directory files at the very startup ( manually , after system finished the startup process ) ?

Yes, there are files that many programs look for and will generate errors if they're not found.

If you're trying to save space, I would use the logrotate package and archive/delete the old log files.

foo_bar_foo · 06-24-2005, 04:59 PM

it's important to differentiate between /var
and
/var/tmp

might be able to erase the data in /tmp and /var/tmp
and contents will be regenerated
but to erase entire /var directory and you are screwed

Boow · 06-25-2005, 08:36 AM

If you just want to safly clean old tmp files left behind this script might be what your looking for. Just put this script in cron.daily

#!/bin/sh
find /tmp /var/tmp -not -type d -mtime +3 -print0 |xargs --null --no-run-if-empty rm -f

find /tmp /var/tmp -depth -mindepth 1 -type d -empty -print0 |xargs --null --no-run-if-empty rmdir