having /tmp mounted onto another directory

hgomersall

Due to the way I have my partitions set up, I have a small root partition and /usr mounted onto a larger partition.

I thought that this would suffice when I started. Up until now I have been getting away with changing the portage default directories (using 'export ...'). However, my system seems to like reverting to factory defaults (for example using the /tmp directory for large amounts of data) whenever I upgrade portage (it seems to do it at other times too - I don't fully understand). It's annoying to say the least to suddenly find it's using the /tmp directory and the emerge fails because of insufficient disk space.

So, recently, I decided to try mounting /tmp on a (arbitrarily named) directory /usr/roottmp (and so a larger partition) using 'mount --bind /usr/roottmp /tmp'.

I then unmerged gdm and reemerged it (I don't think the fact it was gdm had much to do with it - although I may be wrong). The emerge did not give any errors (as merely linking /tmp had). However, no binary seemed to be present and typing gdm did not work.

Unmounting the said directory and remerging gdm worked perfectly.

I cannot understand why this method would not work. If somebody could enlighten me I'd be very grateful.

thanks

hen

Beffe · n00b Joined: 27 Aug 2002 Posts: 29

did you try a symlink instead of mount?

something like
rmdir /tmp
ln -s /usr/roottmp /tmp

hgomersall · Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2002 1:25 pm Post subject:

yeah, I tried a symlink. It actually gives errors on emerging - which the method described above doesn't.

Naan Yaar · Bodhisattva Joined: 27 Jun 2002 Posts: 1549

What are the permissions on /tmp? If you do "ls -ld /tmp" what does it show?

hgomersall · Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2002 1:55 pm Post subject:

the permissions for /tmp are drwxrwxrwt

I was quite careful about this because I think I had some problems with gnome prior to my gdm problem (what let to the gdm problem in fact) relating to incorrect permissions on the /tmp directory.