Server partitioning for small drive (9 GB)
 

Hey all,

I'm setting up my first server mostly as an experiment this march break. It's an old dual P3 server with Adaptec SCSI RAID, and I have some SCSI hard drives kicking around from another old server that has a dead mobo.

I'm interested in figuring out RAID, so I want to use two of these 9.3GB SCSI drives. As far as partitioning goes, what would you suggest as a scheme? I'm thinking:

/boot 100mb
swap 512mb
/var 2gb?
/root Rest?

Basically I'm wondering how big the /var directory should be. I'm aware that it's a fairly important partition on a server. I'm pretty sure this should be enough space to at least host a small website.

Thanks

A few questions to aid the forum users to answer your query:

1) What Linux distro are you using?

2) What RAID level?

3) Why do you need to partition /var, as opposed to leaving it within the / partition?

1 - I am planning on using Slackware.
2 - I'm going to use RAID 1.
3 - I've read that partitioning var on its own partition would help if there was a DOS attack and the log files went crazy or somethign like that.
But I do realize that with the limited amount of space I have, it might be a better idea just to throw everything into /?

I think you've almost answered your own question. Indeed, if you choose to partition /var to protect against the DOS attackers, then the size required will be the default + the size of your website, plus some for future expansion.

The following quotes 2GB.

http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/hack/slack_sec.txt

Great article.

Please be aware that it says "swap should be twice the RAM size". That machine seems to be old and possible has only 256 MB installed, so then you're fine. Otherwise you should adapt your swap size.

I am also a strong advocate of a separate /home partition, unlike the article says. Nothing so easy to have a separate /home partition when you really trash your installation and you have to re-install. Provided you store user data on the disk of course.

jlinkels