In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you write: >I operate a cluster of diskless linux PCs using debian hamm. It works quite >well and i can say that debian causes the least problems with diskless machines >(tried SuSe an Redhat too). >However i was wondering about /var/lib/dpkg. Normally, in a diskless cluster, >every client gets its own copy of /etc, /dev and /var, while /bin, /sbin, /lib >and /usr are there only once. >/var/lib/dpkg, however, which is NOT specifc for each client, occupies some >10 to 20 MB of disk space. Also, if i install or upgrade packages on the >server, >the change is not reflected in the client's copy of /var/lib/dpkg. > >My questions: > 1) Why is this stuff in /var? Shouldn't it rather go to /usr?
Interesting idea. Maybe files like /var/lib/dpkg/available should remain, but files like /var/lib/dpkg/info should really be in /usr... > 2) Can i replace /var/lib/dpkg on the clients with a link to the server's > /var/lib/dpkg? > 3) Is /var/lib/dpkg only used at install/upgrade time? Yes. With my diskless NFS-root Debian package I have designed, client computers do not get any files under /var/lib/dpkg. While this means that commands like "dpkg -l ..." do not work, dpkg has minor (but irratating) problems working on NFS-Root systems anyway (with /tmp being NFS mounted).
