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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Using /var/tmp instead of /tmp

From: Michał Łabędzki <michal.tomasz.labedzki@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2017 07:19:18 +0200
I also wonder why it is "/tmp" only. It should be configurable. It is
not good idea Defaults to "/tmp".
Or add option to easy start capture to destination file (not tmp file)
- currently it is hidden in "capture options", but it may be more
comfortable (in some cases) to have it available on capture start
"click" I think about two buttons on toolbar? direct-tmp-file-version
and ask-to-choose-file-before-start-version - also (text) field on
welcome screen (to easy change save file name/path)?

Why? Tmp file can be really big, it is easy to hurt OS (tmpfs).

2017-06-29 19:35 GMT+02:00 John Thacker <johnthacker@xxxxxxxxx>:
> On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 1:21 PM, Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> On Jun 29, 2017, at 3:48 AM, John Thacker <johnthacker@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> > I believe the main reason is that Fedora defaults /tmp to tmpfs
>> > (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/tmp-on-tmpfs) which thus limits it
>> > to the size of RAM (half that, at default).
>>
>> Does Linux not have a *virtual* memory-based tmpfs, such as the one that
>> Sun developed back in the late 1980's, allowing pages from temporary files
>> either to be in memory or swap space?
>>
> Ah, to be correct, it is possible to set it to more than the amount of
> physical RAM, and it will use swap at that point (see
> https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt as well as
> someone actually testing it
> https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/237030/how-safe-is-it-to-increase-tmpfs-to-more-than-physical-memory)
> but it's set to a defined maximum at mount time and has to be remounted to
> change. I've never actually set it to larger than my amount of RAM. I
> suspect that Fedora simply found it easier to leave the default and then
> change large files to use /var/tmp
>
> The Sun version was the inspiration; the old Linux ramfs that tmpfs replaced
> was limited to the size of RAM, and thus not as flexible.
>
> John
>
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-- 
Michał Łabędzki