CKB:Temporary Directory No Longer Persistent in openSUSE Leap 16.0

Applies To

OpenSUSE upgrade performing from version Leap 15.6 to Leap 16.0.

Problem

After upgrading to openSUSE Leap 16.0, any files stored in /tmp are permanently deleted on every system reboot. Applications or scripts that relied on /tmp for storing data between reboots will lose that data, potentially causing application failures or unexpected behavior.

Cause

openSUSE Leap 16.0 enables tmp.mount by default, which mounts /tmp as a tmpfs — a virtual filesystem that lives entirely in RAM. This is a modern Linux best practice: /tmp was always intended as a short-lived scratch space, not persistent storage. Making it RAM-backed improves performance and security (sensitive temporary data is automatically cleared on reboot), but means nothing in /tmp survives a restart.

Solution/Workaround

Use /var/tmp for Persistent Temporary Files (Recommended)

/var/tmp is the correct location for temporary files that must survive reboots. It is disk-backed and preserved across restarts by design.

Any application or script currently writing persistent data to /tmp should be updated to use /var/tmp instead.

With this we can reconfigure the application's temporary folder. Refer to the application's temporary folder configuration guide for instructions: System Startup Configuration – Temporary Folder.

Note: Any changes to the temporary folder configuration should be made before performing the upgrade to avoid data loss.

Reference: openSUSE Leap 16.0 Release Notes – v160-tmp-not-persistent