Sharing /var between systems

[Stuart Sears]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I have Fedora-7 and Fedora-8 on the same computer.
> Can I share /var between them?
> (I have the Fedora-7 /var on a separate partition.
> If possible, I'd like to use this with the new system.)

why? Are there specific files you would like to share?

Sharing /var between systems is the road to madness.

A simple example:

RPM keeps its database in /var/lib/rpm

if you share /var/ between F7 and F8 you are going to seriously mess up
updates - the database is used to decide what you have installed and
whether an update is valid or not (among other things)

> Any suggestions gratefully received.

The only sensible reason I can see for this is sharing (for example)
server content (/var/www/html /var/named etc) between installed systems.

In this situation I would seriously consider reconfiguring your servers
to use /srv as their "documentroot" (or the equivalent for each specific
server). This you should be able to share without messing up rpm,
logging (etc etc)


Kind Regards,

Stuart
--
Stuart Sears RHC* (and all that stuff)
Quit worrying about your health.  It'll go away.
                -- Robert Orben