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Imagineer
Asked: 2009-08-19 06:20:32 +0800 CST

Shouldn't all Linux based servers have / and /boot?

  • 772

I was unable to determine partition for / and /boot using 'mount | column -t' on one of the server. Shouldn't all servers should have / and /boot?

Output

proc        on  /proc                 type  proc        (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys        on  /sys                  type  sysfs       (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun      on  /var/run              type  tmpfs       (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock     on  /var/lock             type  tmpfs       (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev        on  /dev                  type  tmpfs       (rw,mode=0755)
devshm      on  /dev/shm              type  tmpfs       (rw)
devpts      on  /dev/pts              type  devpts      (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
securityfs  on  /sys/kernel/security  type  securityfs  (rw)
/home       on  /var/www              type  none        (rw,bind)

# cat /proc/mounts
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
none /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,relatime 0 0
fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/91033a67-4da0-41a7-a594-ebb80cd4eb98 / ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/91033a67-4da0-41a7-a594-ebb80cd4eb98 /dev/.static/dev ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered 0 0
tmpfs /var/run tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
tmpfs /var/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,relatime 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /var/run tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
tmpfs /var/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/91033a67-4da0-41a7-a594-ebb80cd4eb98 /var/www ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered 0 0

#df -h /
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/home                 4.7G  3.0G  1.6G  67% /var/www

Any insight is greatly appreciated, thank you.

linux

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The /boot partition is just a linux specific convention that isn't strictly necessary. It's used by grub or lilo or whatever to store the kernels, but in the past it was just as common to put the kernel images into / and the boot loader configurations into /etc (typically /etc/lilo.conf).

    The main issue is that the boot loader needs to know where to find the kernel. The kernel itself can be anywhere, but /boot is a convenient place to put it.

    / on the other hand, is necessary. Without that there is nowhere to mount everything else. That's an issue that's a core part of unix -- there is one unified filesystem.

    In your specific case, it looks like you're using some usermode linux or something inside a jail or some similar chrooted environment.

    The command you're specifically looking for to figure out what is going on with / is 

    df -h /

    that will tell you about what's going on with the root directory (where it's mounted and so on).

    • 7

  2. No.

    this is a remnant from old days when a kernel couldn't be booted from disk area beyond 1024th cylinder or so, so you needed to create a partition that would make sure you don't put a kernel where it couldn't be booted.

    It is still sometimes a good practice to have it if your setup is more complicated so you don't shoot yourself in the foot that easily, i.e. root partition in software raid, odd hardware etc.

    • 2

  3. NO! (ok just need to fill 115 chars)

    • -3