Hi Forum

Everytime in run a slackbuild, or src2pkg, besider of creating the install package in /tmp, it creates several folders... some in /tmp/SBo/* ans some others in /tmp/*.

Of course I pan to burn a DVD with the whole set of packages for install/up(downgrade) I have created... I won't wipe them until I have done so...

My question is...

Should i rm -rf all the directories created in /tmp, could this harm my system...?

( Guess no, but one never knows... :-| )

BRGDS

Alex

/tmp is just what it says, temporary. Many distributions clear it at boot time too. As long as you don't delete a file in active use (eg while the package is installing or something similar) you should be ok to delete anything in /tmp.

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Hi rweaver

Thks for your answer...

...as time goes by, /tmp gets really big :-)

...I'll post someting in /etc/rc.local like rm -rf /tmp/*&

so as not to worry with this anymore...

Thx

BRGDS

Alex

I always modify slackbuild scripts to delete the two directories each script creates.

Regarding the remainder of the /tmp directory, perhaps the following will help:

Removing Temporary Files and Clutter

There are two short shell scripts there that might help you write your own script.

Another trick I use is to assign the $TMP environment variable to /dev/shm, which is created in /etc/fstab. Because that location is in RAM, all of the possible clutter created in $TMP gets deleted with a reboot or shutdown.

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Create a file in /etc/rc.d/ called rc.local_shutdown, put this line in it and make it executable (chmod +x):
That way, /tmp will be cleared during shutdown.
Never caused me any trouble.

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You can safely delete everything in it. Move your packages to another directory. If you have enough RAM, you can mount /tmp as tmpfs, and your system will be a lot faster, but the info in /tmp will be lost at reboot, which isn't a problem anyway.

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Ah! A perennial question and one for which there are no right answers -- only options with pros and cons.

It is arguably safer to clear /tmp during startup as soon as the file system containing it is mounted (or is mounted rw, if it is on /) because that is the time when there is least likelihood of active processes accessing files on /tmp. There is still a possibility that some files-or-directories in /tmp are required, especially if /tmp is the root of a file system -- in which case it will have lost+found and maybe quota system files.

Following this concept, and having /tmp on /, I modified /etc/rc.d/rc.S (on Slackware 13.0 32-bit) as detailed in this LQ post. Beware! This was controversial in later posts in the same thread including "You should not give advice that will break others's systems". Some illuminating debate ensued but not all the issues raised were fully answered.

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I think the best answer potentially has two parts.

1) Regardless of whether you have "enough" ram, put /tmp on a tmpfs. Problem solved.
The tmpfs will use 1/2 of the available ram by default (iirc), but if it's not being used by files, it can still be used by system as memory.

2) Set TMP=/somewhere_else and OUTPUT=/somewhere_else_else in your environment when running the build scripts.
Then, when you're done, you can wipe $TMP completely with no issues at all, and your packages will be left in $OUTPUT.

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@rworkman thanks for pointing out how tmpfs works.

I'm wondering if a cron job would be a wise idea in that situation if it deleted any file older than a day/hour/what ever.

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Not blindly, no. At least in my case, that would wipe my gpg-agent and my ssh-agent directories from /tmp, as they're created when I log in, and I stay logged in for days or even weeks at a time.

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I have created a line in my /etc/fstab like this:
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs mode=1777 0 0
Now /tmp is cleaned everytime I exit my computer. Works great for me so far.

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See the thread I linked above; it has some useful discussion related to your wondering, including about tmpwatch which is designed for tmp file housekeeping.

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I always just delete everything in /tmp/SBo/ after I install my slackbuilds.
I save all my slackbuild packages in a "slackbuilds" directory in my home directory. This way I can easily reinstall them all if I ever reinstall Slackware. I have never need to reinstall Slackware though.
I can also easily move them to my laptop if I need them there.

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Hi ppl

Thks for all your enlightening answers... :-)


BRGDS

Alex