Dirk Moolman wrote:
Sorry, let me explain.
We are using Oracle. Oracle uses filesystems to create datafiles in, for example it will create files like:
/oradata01/system01.dbf /oradata02/users01.dbf
Now if /oradata02 (a new filesystem I created) points to the device /dev/sda, instead of /dev/sda1 (a partition on sda), will this be a problem ?
Having administrated Oracle servers, your best bet is to still go through the partition table. Create /sd_1 to use the whole disk if you want, but in general, trying to use the first 1 or 2 blocks (I forget which) that are reserved for the partition table is asking for headaches and/or data corruption if the disk is removed and given to someone else to do something with if someone forgets to tell them that the disk doesn't have a partition table. Mistakes as in DATA LOSS by overwriting the block(s) normally used by a partition table.
It formatted and mounted fine, without any problems, and Oracle is ok with the space. I just don't want to run into problems further down the line, so I just want to make sure it is ok like this.
With some Unix systems you have to be careful with your device partitions, and your offsets that you use, but I don't have much experience on Linux, and just want to confirm that the above setup will be ok.
Dirk
-----Original Message----- From: David Bolt [mailto:bcrafhfr@davjam.org] Sent: 13 February 2008 01:03 PM To: opensuse@opensuse.org Subject: Re: [opensuse] Use entire disk, and not a partition
On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Dirk Moolman wrote:-
If you have a disk, let's say /dev/sda, and instead of creating partitions on the disk, for example /dev/sda1, you use the entire disk, format it, and allocate it to an application - will this cause any problems ?
What do you mean by "allocate it to an application" ?
Do you mean something like creating a file system on the device, mounting it on /srv/www and leaving it just for Apache2? If so, it shouldn't. If not, how about giving a concrete example of what you mean?
In short: the application points to and uses /dev/sda (which is mounted), instead of /dev/sda1.
Unless the application is specifically manipulating devices, it's not going to be using /dev/sda but will use whatever directory /dev/sda uses as the mount point.
Regards, David Bolt
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