In message <5.0.2.1.0.20010507104527.00a9fd90@pop.netzero.net>, Steven Grunza w
rites:
>Hello,
>   I'm running NetBSD-1.5 on a P4 with 1GB of memory.  I keep getting "file 
>system full" messages when /tmp overflows rebuilding the locate 
>database.  Since I typically only use 100 to 200 MB of physical memory 
>while running, I'm considering creating a 256MB MFS drive mounted as 
>/tmp.  My questions are:
>
>1)  When is the best time to do this?  In /etc/fstab or in /etc/rc.local?
>
>2)  How do I do this?  I've been trying various incantations but haven't 
>gotten mount_mfs to work yet.  The man page doesn't have an example...
>
>3)  Is this a good idea or should I just symlink /tmp to 
>/really_big_and_empty/tmp?  It seems that using MFS would result in faster 
>process execution....

Here's my /tmp entry from fstab; it works just fine:

/dev/wd0b       /tmp    mfs     rw,-s=655360


The downside is that you lose it all when you reboot.  Of course, in a 
fairly strong sense that's the upside, too.

On a 1G machine, I'd definitely go for MFS.  Just be sure that you have 
enough swap space.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb