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Need more disk space on / for yum to update? - Neil - 2010-10-21


Hi guys,

 

Whenever I try and update the server using yum, I get an error something like:

 



Code:
Transaction Check Error: installing package nss-3.12.8-1.el5.centos.i386 needs 4KB on the / filesystem




 

Now I fixed this before by removing old kernel's, but there are only 2 at the moment (the one in use and a new one - waiting for a good time to reboot!)

 

Disk usage:

 



Code:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/md1 4956160 4947480 0 100% / /dev/md3 4956224 1508680 3191716 33% /var /dev/md2 271835552 55636240 202168148 22% /home /dev/md0 77649 18728 54912 26% /boot tmpfs 3911088 0 3911088 0% /dev/shm




 

Contents of /

 



Code:
ls / -al drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Sep 30 11:05 . drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Sep 30 11:05 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 May 18 09:41 .autofsck -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 15 2010 .autorelabel drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 16 04:02 bin drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 5120 Oct 15 11:18 boot drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4100 Oct 17 04:02 dev drwxr-xr-x 82 root root 12288 Oct 21 04:02 etc drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Oct 15 11:17 home drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Oct 16 04:02 lib drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Oct 16 04:02 lib64 drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Jan 15 2010 lost+found drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 26 2010 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Aug 18 02:00 misc drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 26 2010 mnt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Aug 18 02:00 net drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 26 2010 opt dr-xr-xr-x 437 root root 0 May 18 10:40 proc drwxr-x--- 4 root root 4096 Oct 21 11:25 root drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Oct 16 04:02 sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 26 2010 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 26 2010 srv drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 0 May 18 10:40 sys drwxrwxrwt 3 root root 20480 Oct 21 11:33 tmp drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 May 17 14:05 usr drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 May 17 14:05 var




 

Is there a way I can give '/' more space safely? I'm not too sure I want to go delete stuff from there in case it has disastrous consequences...

 

Cheers

 

Neil



Need more disk space on / for yum to update? - Dungeon-Dave - 2010-10-22


ouch - no reason why your root filesystem should fill up like that!

 

use the "du" command to see how big specific directories are, eg:



Code:
du -sh /




or:



Code:
du -sh *




when in a directory.

 

You can ignore the /home and /var dirs - they're mounted on separate filesystems.

 

As a matter of interest.. you don't (graphical) login as root and run everything as that user, do you?



Need more disk space on / for yum to update? - Neil - 2010-10-26


Quote:ouch - no reason why your root filesystem should fill up like that!

 

use the "du" command to see how big specific directories are, eg:



Code:
du -sh /

<div>


or:



Code:
du -sh *




when in a directory.

 

You can ignore the /home and /var dirs - they're mounted on separate filesystems.

 

As a matter of interest.. you don't (graphical) login as root and run everything as that user, do you?



</div>
 

It's a server, so no graphical logins at all.

 

If it was /var I'd be laughing as I could just empty some apache log files, restart the daemon and bob's your uncle... Is there an easy way of getting yum to use a drive that does have free space on it? The / path is confusing me, as when I list the files on it, I see etc, var etc, but they're on their own filesystem.

 

Interestingly, I've moved the yum cache dir to

Code:
/home/yum/cache


which has plenty of space, and I still get errors!

 



Code:
Transaction Check Error: installing package nss-3.12.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64 needs 16KB on the / filesystem installing package autofs-5.0.1-0.rc2.143.el5_5.5.x86_64 needs 16KB on the / filesystem installing package glibc-2.5-49.el5_5.7.i686 needs 16KB on the / filesystem installing package kernel-2.6.18-194.17.4.el5.x86_64 needs 96MB on the / filesystem installing package kernel-headers-2.6.18-194.17.4.el5.x86_64 needs 96MB on the / filesystem installing package glibc-devel-2.5-49.el5_5.7.x86_64 needs 96MB on the / filesystem installing package nss-tools-3.12.8-1.el5.centos.x86_64 needs 96MB on the / filesystem Error Summary ------------- Disk Requirements: At least 96MB needed on the / filesystem.






Need more disk space on / for yum to update? - Dungeon-Dave - 2010-10-26


Quote:It's a server, so no graphical logins at all.

 

If it was /var I'd be laughing as I could just empty some apache log files, restart the daemon and bob's your uncle... Is there an easy way of getting yum to use a drive that does have free space on it?
Getting yum to use a different drive/partition is a matter of mounting something over /var/cache/yum, but as your /var is on another filesystem then that isn't the issue. Try "yum clean cache" or "yum clean all" to flush out the contents.

 

Remember that yum simply installs files - it may be adding packages to /usr/bin - so there isn't a way of "getting yum to use a drive with free space", unless you're talking about the cache, which you addressed lower down.

 

Quote:The / path is confusing me, as when I list the files on it, I see etc, var etc, but they're on their own filesystem.
"mount" will show you where mount points are for separate filesystems. It helps to think of "/" as one cooridoor with rooms leading off to other areas of the floor, except that /var leads to stairs up to another floor and /home = stairs leading down. "df" will report the sizes of those floors as well as the "/" floor, but it means content dropped into those filesytstems doesn't affect your current (root) floor.

 

What did the "du" command show?

 

Quote:Interestingly, I've moved the yum cache dir to

Code:
/home/yum/cache

<div>
which has plenty of space, and I still get errors!

</div>
That's a bit like saying you've expanded the size of your warehouse, but your home is still too small to accept delivery of new goods. The cache area is just a holding area for yum to pull down packages before installing; the error moans about the size final destination, not about the cache area (which was in /var anyway, and had space to cope prior to the move).



Need more disk space on / for yum to update? - Neil - 2010-10-27


Thank you for the very clear and concise reply, much appreciated!

 

I think I was getting hung-up on the error, assuming it was yum's cache at fault, not thinking of the possibility it could be a problem with the final install.

 

I do have a slight problem (which is related to my confusion about the actual '/' path) - if I:

 



Code:
ls / bin dev home lib64 media mnt opt root selinux sys usr boot etc lib lost+found misc net proc sbin srv tmp var




 

then it looks like the root isn't a seperate filesystem, but simply the actual root where-from all other paths are under...

 

For example, under a windows box you'd have C: and maybe D:, but C: root would be the root dir, then you'd have /windows under it etc - I'm probably way off here but hopefully that explains my confusion somewhat.

 

So if I run a command like:

 



Code:
du -sh /




 

I get reams and reams of output, as the command scans through everything, even my remote mounted backup drives!

 

I can post the output here but I'm not sure how useful it would be.

 

Not sure if it tells you anything but here's the diskfree stats:

 



Code:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/md1 4.8G 4.8G 0 100% / /dev/md3 4.8G 683M 3.9G 15% /var /dev/md2 260G 54G 193G 22% /home /dev/md0 76M 19M 54M 26% /boot tmpfs 3.8G 0 3.8G 0% /dev/shm




 

 

Ok, I think I might have found some old files which were just sat wasting space, I've deleted them and ended up with some disk space, and yum finished updating successfully!

 



Code:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/md1 4956160 4194400 741760 85% / /dev/md3 4956224 699388 4001008 15% /var /dev/md2 271835552 55930708 201873680 22% /home /dev/md0 77649 18728 54912 26% /boot tmpfs 3911088 0 3911088 0% /dev/shm




 

Thanks for your help, pointers, and for bearing with me!



Need more disk space on / for yum to update? - Dungeon-Dave - 2010-10-27


Quote:For example, under a windows box you'd have C: and maybe D:, but C: root would be the root dir, then you'd have /windows under it etc - I'm probably way off here but hopefully that explains my confusion somewhat.
It's more like "/" = "My Computer" and /var = D: drive, /home = E: drive.

 

Windows has the ability now to mount a drive under a directory, so instead of D: you could call it C:\Documents. It looks like it's part of the C: drive (first disk) but it's a separate filesystem - filling up C:\Documents won't fill up C:\windows or C:|

 

Quote:So if I run a command like:

 



Code:
du -sh /

<div>


 

I get reams and reams of output, as the command scans through everything

</div>
Try:



Code:
cd / du -sh *




That should give you a summary of each dir (or mount point). From there, you can start to drop down into other directories and re-run the command, narrowing down where large files happen to lie.