[ug-bosug] Write system call uses /var/tmp/ directory.

[Venky]

On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 07:49:39PM +0530, murageshgouda.patil at wipro.com wrote:
> It's the basic question; Solaris uses /var/tmp/ directory within write
> system call for storing temporary data.
>
> What the basic idea of having "/var/tmp/" directory?
> And what is the difference between /var/tmp and /tmp directory?

Not sure what you mean by the write system call using /var/tmp/, but
you can figure out the main difference between /var/tmp and /tmp by
checking their filesystem types.

$ df -h /tmp /var/tmp
Filesystem             size   used  avail capacity  Mounted on
swap                   1.2G    11M   1.2G     1%    /tmp
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3      4.8G   4.2G   613M    88%    /

As you can see from the output above, /var/tmp is a directory in the
root filesystem, while /tmp is mounted on swap.  Essentially, /tmp
is a tmpfs filesystem and uses up your system's swap space.  The
advantage is that it is much faster.  The disadvantage -- putting
too much stuff in /tmp eats up your virtual memory.

Venky.