What's this /run directory doing on my system and where does it come from?

[Adam Williamson]

On Wed, 2011-03-30 at 14:16 +0200, Jiri Moskovcak wrote:
> On 03/30/2011 02:04 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On 03/30/2011 01:54 PM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> >> Heya,
> >>
> >> I just uploaded a new version of systemd into F15, which establishes a
> >> directory /run in the root directory. Most likely you'll sooner or later
> >> stumble over it, so here's an explanation what this is and why this is.
> >>
> >> It's a fairly minor technical change,
> >
> > It's a massive FHS violation
> >
> > =>  release blocker.
> 
> It doesn't seem to break anything so even applications which use the old 
> ugly ways will still work in F15, so why this would be a blocker? Or am 
> I missing something?

Right. As far as I'm aware, FHS is a _required minimum_ - we must have
all the FHS directories. It's not a _maximum_ - it doesn't preclude the
existence / use of other directories.

FHS preamble states:

"We do this by:

...

Specifying the minimum files and directories required,"

and the section on the Root Filesystem states:

"Distributions should not create new directories in the root hierarchy
without extremely careful consideration of the consequences including
for application portability."

But it specifically does not _preclude_ distributions from creating new
directories in the root hierarchy. It just says there should be careful
consideration of the consequences. From what I can see, that is
certainly the case here, and given the summary provided by Lennart,
there should be no consequences for application portability.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
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