Mounting /var on another disk causing boot failure

Whenever I try to mount my /var folder to my /dev/sdb1 location (obviously sda is where my /“root” system is located, I’ve notice I’m not able to boot into my system afterwards.

Yes I’ve created an /etc/fstab file

I have no issues when moving just my /home file.

There is no problem when I use another distro (Manjaro) it mounts and boots correctly.

So now I’m wondering if this is a clear Linux issue exclusively.

Is there something in the way this distro is set up that keeps from moving /var to another physical disk?

Honestly I’ve never thought of trying this. You can’t “share” /var with another OS, though, this is likely to give major issues. It would be worth filing a bugreport on our github bug tracker for this.

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I may not have been clear, I’m not sharing my /var with another Linux system.

I’m simply stating that I am unable to mount the /var to another physical disk and boot into Clear Linux, while I can in other distros.

Something with Clear Linux boot process seems to reject the /var being mounted in its own. When I commented out the mount point for /var in the /etc/fstab file then clear was able to boot.

I don’t understand why this is the case.

Seems to be a permissions setting issue. Finally got it to boot but causing other headaches now :thinking:

What’s the motivation for moving /var to another disk?

Because I have an SSD and extra HDD, so as to avoid unnecessary writes to SSD, I have moved the /home & /var to HDD.

For home users, it’s not very necessary to worry about excessive read&writes, unless it’s a low end ssd or you plan to use it for a decade.

Worries about SSD lifespan are technically true, but in many cases it’s just a myth. Like technically rechargeable batteries have maximum number of charges, but most people don’t need to worry about that and they should just charge whenever they want.

Here is a cross link to your GitHub issue for others reference: Mounting /var on another physical disk causes boot issues · Issue #1180 · clearlinux/distribution · GitHub

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Issues regarding wear and migration aside, I believe it should be possible to have /var in a separate partition. If there are issues with it unrelated to migration aspects (because the installed doesn’t offer this functionality right now) then it would be a systemd bug. Still something we likely want to fix, though.

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The permissions were set wrong and that was causing the issue. I can boot like normal now. I am surprised that the permissions weren’t transferred/inherited during migration though, but after a little bit of digging the issue was quickly fixed.