erasing /tmp on start up...

rjlee · 08-03-2004, 06:03 AM

I just thought of something.

When you mount a filesystem, it “hides” any files that were there before, so if you just enter the line in fstab, and reboot (or just run “mount” for that mount-point), the original contents of the directory will still be there, just hidden under the tmpfs mount. You won't actually save any disk space unless you delete the files:

Code:

umount /tmp
rm -rf /tmp/*
mount /tmp

I recommend doing this in single-user mode for /tmp/ (or even booted off a rescue disk), as it reduces the chance of anything using the files you're trying to delete.

Obviously, for a new directory like /home/guest, there'll be nothing there to need deleting, so you don't have to bother with that.

— Robert J. Lee

perry · 08-04-2004, 10:47 PM

to automate the mounting of /home/guest i make some changes to /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Code:

#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local:  Local system initialization script.
#
# Put any local setup commands in here:

#echo Clearing /tmp directory...
#rm -rf /tmp/*

echo Mounting /home/guest
mount /home/guest

cp    /home/keep_guest/.bashrc          /home/guest/.bashrc
cp    /home/keep_guest/.bash_profile    /home/guest/.bash_profile
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.gconf           /home/guest/.gconf
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.gconfd          /home/guest/.gconfd
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.gnome           /home/guest/.gnome
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.gnome2          /home/guest/.gnome2
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.gnome2_private  /home/guest/.gnome2_private
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.metacity        /home/guest/.metacity
#ln -s /home/keep_guest/.nautilus        /home/guest/.nautilus

the cp and ln commands were attempts at setting some values that could be remembered, but it ended up being a permissions nitemare so i abandoned the idea...

i've been using this setup now for over a week and with 512 mb on my system, i'm noticing no differences whatsoever...

to me, the guest account is the best way to surf the internet and not have to worry about caches and the like, which is good, winblows can have their anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-popup, anti-cache and everything else, for me, i'll stick with my tmpfs....

way to go Linux!

- perry

perry · 08-06-2004, 06:05 PM

It's been recommended that I make a couple changes to the /etc/fstab entries:

from:

Code:

tmpfs            /tmp             tmpfs       auto,rw
tmpfs            /home/guest      tmpfs       auto,rw

to:

Code:

none             /tmp	          tmpfs	      defaults         0   0
none             /home/guest      tmpfs	      nosuid,nodev,rw  0   0

not only does this work fine, but there seems to be an extra 100 mb free in my main memory (according to what gkrellm is reporting anyway)

cheers

- perry

perry · 08-12-2004, 11:35 AM

I gotta say, I've been test riding this tmpfs for my /tmp & /home/guest now for a couple of weeks and I think it rocks! Would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to keep Internet junk to a minimum!

cheers

- perry