Feature changed by: Sarah Kriesch (AdaLovelace) Feature #312337, revision 7 Title: clear /tmp-dir at bootup openSUSE Distribution: Duplicate of #309448 - Master status: New + Master status: Done Priority Requester: Neutral Requested by: Marcel Kuehlhorn (tux93) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Please clear the /tmp-dir at boot-up per default. At the moment this has to be activated manually with every new installation, is there a reason for not doing this out of the box? Relations: - (feature/duplicate: 309448) Discussion: #1: Joseph Mitzen (duncreg) (2011-05-22 07:09:39) Maybe I'm the perfect example for your request: as a Linux noob using openSUSE for 10 months, what popped into my mind after reading this is: There's a temp directory? It's not managed automatically? And most importantly, where and how do I turn this feature on? #2: Richard Bos (rbos) (2011-05-22 10:31:39) (reply to #1) Have a look at: /etc/sysconfig/cron At the top there 8 settings that control cleaning of temp directories. They are: MAX_DAYS_IN_TMP="14" MAX_DAYS_IN_LONG_TMP="60" TMP_DIRS_TO_CLEAR="/tmp" LONG_TMP_DIRS_TO_CLEAR="/var/tmp" OWNER_TO_KEEP_IN_TMP="root" CLEAR_TMP_DIRS_AT_BOOTUP="no" DAILY_TIME="" MAX_NOT_RUN="5" (you see them also with yast2 -> system -> /etc/sysconfig-editor -> system -> cron) As you can see temp directories are regurarely cleaned. I don't know the default values, I think that they are: MAX_DAYS_IN_TMP="0" MAX_DAYS_IN_LONG_TMP="0" TMP_DIRS_TO_CLEAR="/tmp" LONG_TMP_DIRS_TO_CLEAR="" In this case temp directories are not cleaned. Enabling CLEAR_TMP_DIRS_AT_BOOTUP would be too much, as one would loose files within a day, assuming that a desktop is switch on and off daily. However, setting MAX_DAYS_IN_TMP to e.g. 14 would be a good thing to do. Perhaps those settings can be managed during the installation process for a brand new installation. But than what should a linux noob answer on question like: Do you want to enable tmp directories be cleared? How long (days) should files remain in tmp directories? Which tmp directories must be cleared? and Do you want to enable long tmp directories be cleared? How long (days) should files remain in tmp directories? Which long tmp directories must be cleared? #3: Stanley Miller (stan_qaz) (2011-05-23 00:32:24) (reply to #2) When asking the questions provide a reasonable default answer. Better to have the system suggest reasonable default values than to just let the directories fill up to the point the user starts seeing problems. I've been a Suse user since 9.1 and didn't know these settings were there and have been manually cleaning the directories from time to time. Having this option available during install would have been handy. #4: David Hall (cowsandmilk) (2011-05-24 18:14:56) (reply to #2) what's wrong with CLEAR_TMP_DIRS_AT_BOOTUP ? Typically this just clears out /tmp , which many people mount as tmpfs which would clear it any way on reboot. Generally, anything there is related to short term file storage while a process is running, while LONG_TMP_DIR (eg /var/tmp) will cache things across runs (eg osc caches package downloads there). -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/312337