[clue] seeking advice cleaning up root

[chris fedde]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Raymond DeRoo <rderoo at deroo.net> wrote:
>
> Relocating MySQL, Postgres and other RDBMS data directory and then symlinking it is nearly always a bad idea and strongly discouraged. If you need to move it from the default location ( which it should be moved from /var/lib ) then edit the appropriate config file and change the datadir accordingly.
>
> .r

I'm curious who has "strongly discouraged" using symbolic links in
this way?  I know that sysadmins each have habits and tastes of choice
but I can think of no performance or maintenance reason why use of
symbolic links in this way should cause a problem.

Personally I prefer using links in this way and letting the
application config remain default.
Using symbolic links has the advantage of minimizing change tracking
required at upgrade time.   Symbolic links are a stable feature of the
OS and can be safely used to isolate applications and users from
complexities of the deployment history.

As always: programmers solve complexity by adding layers of indirection.

chris