[NTLUG:Discuss] Persistence in /tmp

[Rick Cook]

On Tuesday 05 May 2009 10:13:23 Leroy Tennison wrote:
> Rick Cook wrote:
> > On Monday 04 May 2009 22:24:17 Chris Cox wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 08:20 -0500, Leroy Tennison wrote:
> >>> I noticed today that some things I had downloaded days (or months)
> >>> ago continued to exist in /tmp as well as other miscellaneous
> >>> files. There were a number of PPD files but also downloaded
> >>> documents, directories (empty and not) and socket files.  Most were
> >>> deletable but some (even with "old" dates) weren't.
> >>>
> >>> I was previously under the impression that /tmp was truly temporary
> >>> (cleaned up @ shutdown or restart).  Is that an incorrect
> >>> understanding or am I seeing the results of program bugs in the
> >>> non-current files and directories?
> >>
> >> It is a misunderstanding.  The idea is that /tmp CAN get cleaned out
> >> on a regular basis, but technically, it doesn't even have to cleaned
> >> out upon reboot.  So... you can't assume that /tmp gets cleared.
> >
> > Several distributions have configuration settings that allow you to
> > set the /tmp and /var/tmp "clearing policy".
> >
> > For instance, in Debian, you can set a "maximum age" for files in
> > /tmp in the file "/etc/default/rcS".
> >
> >
> > Rick
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >---
> >
>
> Thanks for pointing this out, I need to look at what's being done on
> SuSE 10.3.
>


I check on an openSUSE 10.3 system at work. If I remember correctly - 
should have sent myself an email reminder - you should look into 
/etc/sysconfig/cron.



Rick