Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: files recovery after rm?
Keywords: /tmp, cleaning
Message-ID: <1989Nov14.161055.591@virtech.uucp>
Date: 14 Nov 89 16:10:55 GMT
References: <16608@uhnix1.uh.edu> <20530@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <7444@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu>
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc.
Lines: 31

In article <7444@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu>, mikulska@odin.ucsd.edu (Margaret Mikulska) writes:
> In article <20551@unix.cis.pitt.edu> yahoo@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Kenneth L Moore) writes:
> >In article cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
> >
> >==>Also, since /tmp is frequently used by lots of programs, leaving files in
> >==>those directories for a long period of time will result in the size of the 
> >==>directory growing and can have a significant 
> >==>performance impact on the entire system.
> 
> The main impact is not that much performance, but 'file system full' and
> 'no space on device', especially when /tmp is not on a separate disk

Try putting 3 or 5 thousand files on /tmp and see the overall impact 
it has on the system (performance wise).  You will probably be quite
suprised.  Each time a program tries to create a file on /tmp the kernel
must read the entire directory until it finds the first free slott and 
as time goes on, the long term files (like those placed by an unfriendly rm
alias) will tend to take up the slots at the start of the directory file, so
the kernel will tend to have to read the entire directory EVERY time someone
opens, create, or removes a file in that directory.

Since /tmp is accessed by lots of programs (like some shells, vi, cc, ar, etc)
this can have a tremendous performance inpact on your system.

What you say about space is correct and is also a major consideration.

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