Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wshb!michaelb
From: michaelb@wshb.csms.com ( WSHB Operations Eng)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: cron FIFO in mounted spool filesystem
Keywords: cron FIFO spool
Message-ID: <732@wshb.csms.com>
Date: 18 Jul 90 12:58:24 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: WSHB, Christian Science Mon. Synd., Cypress Creek, SC
Lines: 25

I'm trying to move my /usr/spool directory to a seperate filesystem on a
second hard disk in SCO XENIX 386 2.3.2. I didn't have any trouble
making the filesystem or getting it to mount. I created all of the
directories normally in /usr/spool, set it to automatically mount
at boot, and changed cron startup to the user daemons (/etc/rc.d/7)
so it would start after the filesystems were stable. I haven't tried
to run the system this way because I noticed there is a FIFO in
/usr/spool/cron that gets covered when I mount /dev/spool on /usr/spool.

I had thought cron would create a new FIFO on startup and remove the old FIFO
on shutdown. Obviously I'm wrong. What does this FIFO do? Can I cover
it up with impunity, or will cron choke and puke because the FIFO is
gone? Is there some way I can trick link to link it across the filesystem
boundry? (What the hell is a FIFO anyway? This is one of those magic
things about unix I've never understood.) Should I give up on a whole
spool directory and just make several smaller filesystems and mount them
on uucppublic, mail, and news?

Confused in South Carolina.
Michael
-- 
Michael Batchelor--Systems/Operations Engineer #compliments and complaints
WSHB - An International Broadcast Station of   #   letterbox@csms.com
 The Christian Science Monitor Syndicate, Inc. #technical questions and reports
michaelb@wshb.csms.com         +1 803 625 4880 #   letterbox-tech@csms.com