LinuxQuestions.org - What happens with the /boot directory is full in Ubuntu 12.04.5?

- Linux - Newbie (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/)

- - What happens with the /boot directory is full in Ubuntu 12.04.5? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/what-happens-with-the-boot-directory-is-full-in-ubuntu-12-04-5-a-4175542784/)

What happens with the /boot directory is full in Ubuntu 12.04.5?

Hi. I think because the auto-update is on, old kernels and their dependencies continuously fill up the /boot partition. Can someone tell me if this is an issue? That is, will it affect cron jobs or any other process on the virtual machine?

I just figured out how to manually purge them using the command prompt. But it seems to be a design flaw in Ubuntu, no?

The /boot partition is only used during the initial boot of the host.

So VM's are not affected.

Host crontabs are stored in /var

This only becomes a problem with a separate /boot partition. Instead have a separate / and /home partitions and you will never have a problem.

I've noticed this as well. On my boxes I just go through and regularly purge old kernels, however Ubuntu has other ways of dealing with this. This page in the documentation has some tips.

I've fgound when /boot is full apt-get will fail to work correctly and some manual clean-up work is needed.

Yes, thank you all. I've too noted that apt-get didn't work properly when the /boot was full. Even after moving everything out of the /boot (which was a mistake) apt-get worked better, but still failed.

Yes, I purged the old kernels with the following:

Code:

>uname -r

3.2.0-83-generic-pae

>dpkg --list | grep linux-image

ii  linux-image-3.2.0-82-generic-pae      3.2.0-82.119                            Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP

ii  linux-image-3.2.0-83-generic-pae      3.2.0-83.120                            Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP

ii  linux-image-generic-pae                3.2.0.83.97                            Generic Linux kernel image

>sudo apt-get purge linux-image-3.2.0.82-generic (this is the old kernel file to be removed)

>sudo update-grub2

Anyone know how to turn off the auto-updates from the command line?

whm1974: I'm not following you. I have a separate / /boot and /home?

post output of

Quote:

sudo fdisk -l
df -h

I had problems with another machine. But here is the one that I am currently using:

Code:

>sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00050045



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sda1  *        2048      499711      248832  83  Linux

/dev/sda2          501758  312498175  155998209    5  Extended

/dev/sda5          501760  312498175  155998208  8e  Linux LVM



Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000



Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table



Disk /dev/mapper/Opera-root: 28.5 GB, 28458352640 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3459 cylinders, total 55582720 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000



Disk /dev/mapper/Opera-root doesn't contain a valid partition table



Disk /dev/mapper/Opera-swap_1: 3485 MB, 3485466624 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 423 cylinders, total 6807552 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000



Disk /dev/mapper/Opera-swap_1 doesn't contain a valid partition table



Disk /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: 3485 MB, 3485466624 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 423 cylinders, total 6807552 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x4a1ab871



Disk /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Code:

Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use Mounted on

/dev/mapper/Opera-root  27G  4.1G  21G  17% /

udev                    996M  4.0K  996M  1% /dev

tmpfs                  202M  788K  201M  1% /run

none                    5.0M    0  5.0M  0% /run/lock

none                  1006M  224K 1006M  1% /run/shm

/dev/sda1              228M  62M  155M  29% /boot

/home/hgill/.Private    27G  4.1G  21G  17% /home/tears

Quote:

whm1974: I'm not following you. I have a separate / /boot and /home?

I meant to say that just have / and /home in separate partition. And you don't need to put /boot in it's own separate partition.