openvz: making directory /run/shm persistant?

Question

I just upgraded my server to ubuntu 12.04. But the last updates failed because of an error with the update of the package 'initscripts':

Setting up initscripts (2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu11) ...
mkdir: cannot create directory `/dev/shm': File exists
dpkg: error processing initscripts (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

Because of this update error there are many other packages in a 'corrupt' state and cannot be updated.

I found some notes in the web that this problem appears on virtual systems. This updated server is a OpenVZ guest on a debian machine.

Do you have any idea how to fix this problem?

[EDIT] I just figured out, that /dev/shm is a symlink to /run/shm, which doesn't exist. After I created the folder /run/shm, everything works fine.

But this new directory as well as /run/lock (which is symlinked from /var/lock) disappears on every vz restart.

How can I make them persistant?

Answer 1

Short answer: you can't. Whenever the machine reboots, /dev/shm is re-created because it's the shared memory device (basically a ramdisk) that gets reset on every reboot. The entire /run folder is also cleared on every reboot.

You could always add a couple mkdir commands to your /etc/rc.local folder to create them on a reboot as a workaround.