Here we disagree, I consider /root very much a part of the base
system and it should be pretty much unused. And I am a person
that logs in as root and su -'s out to user accounts, but I
still do not use /root as a normal home directory, everything
else is done and stored some other place.
Do you see /root as part of the base here
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/ ? ;-)
Yes, at a few places, that pkg base has majorly moved stuff around
and I am not going to hunt for it but etc/Makefile and etc/mtree/BSD.root.dist.
${DESTDIR}/root is created and populated during a make distribution.
Also look here https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/jails-application.html
/root is treated as editable part of the read-only base system, the same
way as /home
editable != seperate vfs or zfs dataset. Try it, I suspect the jail
create fails with the same error that it can not cross link the files.
The fact that it is shipped with the base system, created by the
base system installer, and is pretty much a mandatory required directoy,
however does make it very much part of the base system.
We actually don't argue here if /root is part of a base system but if
it's reasonable for the installer to assume that /root is on the same
dataset as /.
It is totally reasonable for it to assume that since the contents
of / and /root are shipped in one tar ball, base.txz.
Based on the links I mentioned above, and on your comment, my
understanding is that /root is not part of the base system but it's
created and populated by the installer when installing the base.
Yo have miss undertood my comments then. It is populated by the
installer when it extracts base.txz.
Is the
requirement that the /root dataset should be on the same dataset as /
mentioned anywhere in the official documentation? I couldn't find it
here
<https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html#bsdinstall-part-shell>
but it's also hard to search for due to root being a very common word in
various contexts. Certainly bsdinstall doesn't require /root to be on
the same dataset as /.
Loack of documentation does not change the assumptions made by the
base system.
If indeed there is no such existing requirement, then it would be
As it exists today "there is a requirement that /root and / be
in the same filesystem." That requirement is why your getting
an error. That requirement goes back to BSD 4.3 or earlier.
something new that pkgbase is introducing. Which might be fine, but is
it reasonable?
This is not something new that pkg base has introduced, this requirement
has existed for > 2 decades.
I don't think so. Regardless if /root should be
considered part of the base system or not, I don't see any reason for
pkgbase or the FreeBSD's base system to require /root to be on the same
dataset as / apart from those two hardlinks discussed earlier.
Yep, it is those 2 hard links that create the requirement,
and the reasons behind them being hard linked are rather
practical, it is so that when/if the system fails to single
user and HOME becomes / the user has the same environment
that they would had root loged in, sans having to manual
pick a shell.
It's home directory for the /root user,
where I often have larger files that I either copy to install or just as
a backup of some parts of the system.
I would never store backup's in /root!
Backup may mean different things. I don't mean backups of the system.
Consider a tarball of the kernel copied from another system that needs
to be unpacked to / or temporary copies of some configs that are being
edited, e.g. pf.conf or rc.conf. Where would you store those?
Probably in /tmp, maybe in ~rgrimes, but defanitly not in /root.
Versioning it per boot environment
wouldn't make sense.
Double edge sword. The set of tweaks needed in .cshrc or .profile may
vary by version of FreeBSD installed.
Well, I would assume that an administrator is free to edit .cshrc and
.profile for their own needs, e.g. add aliases or env variables. Once
changed they would no longer be updated with the system but skipped.
Actually I believe the update process, especially pkg base knows how to
do 3 way merges of files marked as conf.
There are always reference versions in / which the administrator should
consult and copy over any required changes after the system has been
updated.
The files in / are NOT seperate versions, they are a second pointer
to the same file contents. Editing /.cshrc also changes /root/.cshrc.
GrzegorzJ
