Problem moving /var to separate partition

a550ee · 09-28-2007, 01:27 PM

Hello!
I have ubuntu distro which lives on one hard drive: /boot on one partition, / on another and swap aslo on another.
Then I've moved all data from one hard drive to another. I've carefully re-created partition layout and also made separate partition for /var directory.

I've also tuned /etc/fstab; it was:

Code:

-/dev/sda5      /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
-/dev/sda6      /home           ext3    defaults,user_xattr        0       2

become:

Code:

+/dev/sda7      /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
+/dev/sda8      /var            ext3    defaults 0       0
+/dev/sda9      /home           ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro,user_xattr

Then I've moved contents of /var to /dev/sda8 and leave /var on / empty.

Problem is during boot process I get error messages /var/lock and /var/run mountpoints doesn't exist.
This causes network facilities to fail to start.

I have lock and run in /var on /dev/ sda8. Why it asks for them on sda7?

Disillusionist · 09-29-2007, 06:13 AM

It is looking for these directories on sda7 because it has not mounted the /var partition at boot time.

Therefore it is finding an empty /var directory.

Try changing the /etc/fstab file:

Code:

/dev/sda7      /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda8      /var            ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       2
/dev/sda6      /home           ext3    defaults,user_xattr        0       3

The sixth field denotes the order that the file systems will be checked (zero means the filesystem will not be checked).

Changing this value to a 2 means the filesystem will be checked at bootup.

Adding the errors=remount-ro option will mount the /var as read only if it is unable to mount it as read-write.

a550ee · 09-29-2007, 10:09 AM

That doesn't help. That's ubuntu's pecularities I don't understand. Now I ended with /var on the same partition as / but all contents except for run and lock moved to separate partition and symlinked back.

fs_passno=3 is errorous here.

My fs_passno=0 for /var makes no sense. Thanks!

jay73 · 09-29-2007, 11:45 AM

It's quite possible the the data were copied incorrectly. You need to use cp -ax *. Of course, it is also possible that some permissions were changed. Check the permissions on your var partition:

ls -l /var

The output should look something like this:

Quote:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-29 04:09 backups
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2007-09-23 15:30 cache
drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 137 2007-09-29 04:03 crash
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2007-09-02 05:38 games
drwxr-xr-x 68 root root 4096 2007-09-25 15:10 lib
drwxrwsr-x 2 root staff 6 2007-04-12 11:11 local
drwxrwxrwt 4 root root 80 2007-09-29 16:43 lock
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4096 2007-09-29 16:43 log
drwxrwsr-x 2 root mail 6 2007-08-31 05:02 mail
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 6 2007-08-31 05:02 opt
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 960 2007-09-29 16:57 run
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 82 2007-09-25 15:10 spool
drwxr-xr-x 7 www-data www-data 90 2007-09-23 11:12 svn
drwxrwxrwt 3 root root 47 2007-09-29 05:23 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 52 2007-09-02 07:20 www

a550ee · 09-30-2007, 06:17 AM

I've been using -dprx keys for cp command. As far as I know it's the same as -ax. /var looks like this:

Code:

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   16 2007-09-29 18:49 backups -> /mnt/var/backups
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 2007-09-29 18:49 cache -> /mnt/var/cache
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 2007-09-29 18:49 crash -> /mnt/var/crash
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 2007-09-29 18:49 games -> /mnt/var/games
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 2007-09-29 18:49 lib -> /mnt/var/lib
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 2007-09-29 18:49 local -> /mnt/var/local
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   40 2007-09-30 13:37 lock
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 2007-09-29 18:49 log -> /mnt/var/log
drwx------  2 root root 4096 2007-09-27 21:32 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   13 2007-09-29 18:49 mail -> /mnt/var/mail
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   16 2007-09-29 18:49 network -> /mnt/var/network
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 2007-09-29 18:49 opt -> /mnt/var/opt
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root  740 2007-09-30 15:05 run
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   14 2007-09-29 18:49 spool -> /mnt/var/spool
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 2007-09-29 18:49 tmp -> /mnt/var/tmp
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 2007-09-29 18:49 www -> /mnt/var/www

At the same time /mnt/var looks like this:

Code:

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 2007-09-30 09:50 backups
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root   4096 2007-09-29 22:25 cache
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   4096 2007-09-29 18:56 crash
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 2007-05-09 23:23 games
drwxr-xr-x 67 root root   4096 2007-09-30 09:53 lib
drwxrwsr-x  2 root staff  4096 2007-04-12 13:11 local
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   4096 2007-09-27 11:45 lock
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root   4096 2007-09-30 09:50 log
drwx------  2 root root  16384 2007-09-27 21:32 lost+found
drwxrwsr-t  2 root mail   4096 2007-05-20 16:23 mail
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 2007-09-28 08:33 network
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 2007-04-15 15:48 opt
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root   4096 2007-09-29 18:39 run
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root   4096 2007-09-15 21:50 spool
drwxrwxrwt  4 root root   4096 2007-09-29 22:44 tmp
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root   4096 2007-09-15 15:26 www

Thanks for care!

jay73 · 09-30-2007, 02:06 PM

/mnt/var? You mean that your var is currently mounted on /mnt/var and not simply /var? In that case your fstab needs to read /mnt/var for the mount point, not /var.

a550ee · 10-02-2007, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jay73

/mnt/var? You mean that your var is currently mounted on /mnt/var and not simply /var? In that case your fstab needs to read /mnt/var for the mount point, not /var.

Yep now it's:

Code:

/dev/sda2       /boot           ext3    defaults                                                                0       2
/dev/sda7       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro                                              0       1
/dev/sda8       /mnt/var        ext3    defaults                                                                0       2 
/dev/sda9       /home           ext3    defaults,user_xattr                                                     0       2