-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 17/12/14 08:32, Mike Edenfield wrote: >>>> "A general use scratch pad area where files written are not >>>> expected to survive successive invocations of the program >>>> that wrote them". That's interesting as it means the sysadmin >>>> can delete everything in /tmp at any time for any reason, >> >> And as long as the app doesn't close the file descriptor, >> everything will continue to work just fine. I used to do this for >> fun about once a week or so on a many multiuser host, then tell >> users to tell upstream to fix the stupid bugs in any apps that >> broke. I've calmed down since then, must have something to do >> with the onset of senility... > > Then I discovered that ssh-agent decided that a good default place > to put its domain socket was /tmp/ssh-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and > deleting it breaks ssh key forwarding, among other things :\
I think a key point has been missed here, and that is use of the words "successive invocation". To me, /tmp is an area where files that are /not meant to be permanent/ are able to be written without contaminating the file system and without requiring open permissions in other more sensitive areas like /usr/share or /etc/randomdir. A single invocation of a program having its /tmp contents removed and then acting abnormally isn't something that I would consider a bug. It's when a _subsequent_ run fails because it's expecting a file that is, at least by it's location, _temporary_. One analogy may be that in driving a car, you expect that the engine is running, but it is only required whilst the car is being driven (therefore temporary - only required for that specific invocation). If you suddenly stop the engine when you're halfway to where you're going, within that invocation, you're going to have a bad time. If a program is expecting a dynamically generated file that isn't in the "normal" file system hierarchy, then that file should probably be stored in somewhere like /var or /usr, rather than /tmp. Well, that's my loose change worth. Also, it's early for me - please excuse any bad analogies. :-) - -- wraeth <wra...@wraeth.id.au> GnuPG Key: B2D9F759 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iF4EAREIAAYFAlSQr1YACgkQXcRKerLZ91kh2AD9HrxjihW5NqY673Af+GRCq6Bj kKsyiBUMJAVTkz96fJoA/2P6y3U5drh5Yma5uFRfK+l1YOdrsKj5LPVHBIa7Egpx =HmpB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
