RE: /root file system full
Yes, Bob you are right. The real problem was running KDE while logged in as root, not installing ports. I deleted all the files that KDE placed in / and now everything is fine. Once again, thanks Ron -Original Message- From: Bob Johnson [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, 6 March 2004 3:24 PM To: Ron Joordens Subject: Re: /root file system full On Wednesday 03 March 2004 11:55 pm, you wrote: Bob, Thanks for taking the time to answer my query. My filesystem setup is the default one as suggested during the installation. IE. 128mb for /root, 512mb for /swap, 256mb for /var, 256mb for /tmp and the rest of the 6gb partition (slice) for /usr. A detail: / and /root are not the same thing. The root partition is /, while /root is a directory named root in that partition. I currently think as a result of some of the answers I have received, that the problem is that I have been logging in as root to install ports etc, when I should have been logging in as a user and doing an su to root to install. I don't believe this is your problem. It is a good security precaution, but AFAIK, it won't affect where files end up when you install ports. Some of the security issues are: doing routine operations as root creates the risk that a minor typing error will do major damage that an unprivileged user wouldn't be able to do; if an attacker manages to steal your password, hijack a remote login session, or whatever, they still won't have root access (make them work for it); on multi-administrator systems it provides some degree of accountability; it lets you prohibit remote logins by root (the FreeBSD default, by the way); and more that don't come to mind at the moment. Also running KDE etc while logged in as root may have written KDE files to me / directory. I know, silly boy, but to a beginner when the handbook says that ports can only be installed while logged in as root then I log in as root. The subtle difference between the two is nowhere explained. At least I haven't seen it. This part is accurate. Logging in to KDE as root will add some cruft to your / partition. And KDE always writes stuff into /var/tmp (or /tmp in older versions), regardless of which user invokes it. I shall certainly take note of your advice and have a look at deleting any temp and uneccessary files, creating symlinks and making the filesystems larger when I reinstall, as I inevitably will. Probably sooner rather than later. The whole point to this installation was to evaluate and learn Linux and BSD OSes. I have started with FreeBSD (in at the deep end -:) and will soon try out some of the Linuxes such as Redhat, Slackware, Mandrake and Gentoo. I will then choose a couple I like and reinstall in a more permanent manner. Thus I will have more space to play with later. So far I really like FreeBSD and plan to stick with it. I'll upgrade to 5.2 next install though. Thanks again, Ron Good luck. - Bob ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /root file system full
On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: Good Morning, I have recently installed FreeBSD 4.9 and have thoroughly enjoyed my first foray into the BSD world. Indeed my first foray into any non-windows OS. So far I have encountered quite a few problems but have always managed to find an answer in the handbook or by searching through the extensive resources available on the net. Great documentaion! This is the first time I have needed to ask a question. Good. My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem, what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it doesn't happen again. First, use the program to check usage of a disk. Since it is / that is overfull, log in or su to root cd / du -sk * Then find out which directory trees or files are using up all the space. CD in to those directories and do the same thing until you find some things that seem unexpectedly large or unnecessary. Then you can delete unneeded things. In spite of a pretty good system, upgrades and installs can use up space and leave extra stuff lying around. Some of them clean up after themselves well and some don't do so well. As for the amount of space you need in a / filesystem, I think that the 128 MB is unrealistic. If you have just a base system and stay right on top of it all the time, you can get by with that amount. With disks being so much larget nowdays, I let myself have more, maybe double or so. But, on the machine I am on at the moment, although I have a bigger root, only 43 MB of it is used. I agree, but don't make it to much bigger. There is a better performance include with a small root, since the start of the disk is faster then the end. Having a small root allow a faster boot and faster writes and read to swap file, since this is then closer to the start. I feel 256M would be appropriate. It migth be that less gives problems when you try to update though the make world process. -- Alex Articles based on solutions that I use: http://www.kruijff.org/alex/index.php?dir=docs/FreeBSD/ ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /root file system full
On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:51:56AM +1100, Ron Joordens wrote: Good Morning, I have recently installed FreeBSD 4.9 and have thoroughly enjoyed my first foray into the BSD world. Indeed my first foray into any non-windows OS. So far I have encountered quite a few problems but have always managed to find an answer in the handbook or by searching through the extensive resources available on the net. Great documentaion! This is the first time I have needed to ask a question. My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem, what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Any thoughts? For background information: The / filesystem is the suggested default of 128mb. The handbook says that root is generally about 40mb of data and that 100mb should be enough to allow for future expansion needs, so 128mb should be adequate. During installation I installed everything, sources, ports, documentation, etc. I have CVSuped source to RELENG_4_9. I have CVSuped ports. I have recompiled the kernel 3 or 4 times. I have redirected the /tmp directory to /usr/tmp (these locations are from memory but you get the idea) I got a bit carried away installing ports during installation (a kid in a candy store?) and currently have about 206 installed. I have been updating ports recently using portupgrade with the recursive switches -rR. At the time the first filesystem full error message was seen I was portupgrading arts -Rr which was upgrading a lot of other ports as well. That process stopped with an error message stating that a conflict between xfmail and qt existed and that qt could not be upgraded untill xfmail was deinstalled so there may be a lot of working data still on the system. Would that be on root? Thanks for your help, Ron Joordens Melbourne, Australia Good Evening ;) 128MB is enough for / if you also set up all of the other partitions correctly. If you showed us a df -h we could more easily see your layout. That said, if this is a hobby system as it sounds like, you may be able to get by with fewer partitions. Personally, on desktop systems, I like to put /usr/home on it's own partition and I just throw everythign else on /. It all depends on what you're using the system for, really. That way, I can totally nuke everything, do a full reinstall from scratch, and still have my user environment how I like it without having to goof around with restoring from backups. Regardless of what you decide to do - a reinstall may be in order (sorry). But, chalk it up to experience. You'll have a much cleaner system the second time around :) hth, dan ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /root file system full
Good Morning, I have recently installed FreeBSD 4.9 and have thoroughly enjoyed my first foray into the BSD world. Indeed my first foray into any non-windows OS. So far I have encountered quite a few problems but have always managed to find an answer in the handbook or by searching through the extensive resources available on the net. Great documentaion! This is the first time I have needed to ask a question. Good. My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem, what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it doesn't happen again. First, use the program to check usage of a disk. Since it is / that is overfull, log in or su to root cd / du -sk * Then find out which directory trees or files are using up all the space. CD in to those directories and do the same thing until you find some things that seem unexpectedly large or unnecessary. Then you can delete unneeded things. In spite of a pretty good system, upgrades and installs can use up space and leave extra stuff lying around. Some of them clean up after themselves well and some don't do so well. As for the amount of space you need in a / filesystem, I think that the 128 MB is unrealistic. If you have just a base system and stay right on top of it all the time, you can get by with that amount. With disks being so much larget nowdays, I let myself have more, maybe double or so. But, on the machine I am on at the moment, although I have a bigger root, only 43 MB of it is used. The next thing is to figure out your whole disk partitioning scheme. Generally I make sure that /var and /usr either are separate file systems or at least that the parts of them such as /var/spool and /var/log and /usr/ports and /usr/src and /usr/local are all moved to some big space and symlinked. Without knowing more about what you have where, it isn't possible to say anything more specific. jerry Any thoughts? For background information: The / filesystem is the suggested default of 128mb. The handbook says that root is generally about 40mb of data and that 100mb should be enough to allow for future expansion needs, so 128mb should be adequate. During installation I installed everything, sources, ports, documentation, etc. I have CVSuped source to RELENG_4_9. I have CVSuped ports. I have recompiled the kernel 3 or 4 times. I have redirected the /tmp directory to /usr/tmp (these locations are from memory but you get the idea) I got a bit carried away installing ports during installation (a kid in a candy store?) and currently have about 206 installed. I have been updating ports recently using portupgrade with the recursive switches -rR. At the time the first filesystem full error message was seen I was portupgrading arts -Rr which was upgrading a lot of other ports as well. That process stopped with an error message stating that a conflict between xfmail and qt existed and that qt could not be upgraded untill xfmail was deinstalled so there may be a lot of working data still on the system. Would that be on root? Thanks for your help, Ron Joordens Melbourne, Australia ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /root file system full
On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:51:56AM +1100, Ron Joordens wrote: My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem, what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Any thoughts? Check for core files (called 'foo.core' for many different values of foo) -- you can just delete these unless you're going to get into debugging in a serious way. Check the contents of root's home directory, /root -- you should never log into the system as root, especially not via a graphical login. You shouldn't run any interactive command as root unless it's absolutely necessary. If you've got a /root/.kde or a /root/.gnome* or a /root/GNUstep or a /root/.mozilla then delete those directories straight away, and give yourself a good slap on the wrist for being a bad boy. There shouldn't be much stuff in /root at all. There probably shouldn't be any subdirectories of /root, except for the stuff under /root/.ssh To search the root partition for files matching certain conditions, use the find(1) command. The '-xdev' option lets you limit the search to just the one partition. Eg. to find all files modified in the last week: # find / -xdev -mtime -7 -print Or to find all files over 1Mb in size and produce a long-format listing: # find / -xdev -size +1048576c -ls (that only produces a list of 39 files on my machine). Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: /root file system full
On Thu, 4 Mar 2004 08:51:56 +1100 Ron Joordens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: + Good Morning, + My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem,+ what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it+ doesn't happen again. + + Any thoughts? I have some so far. You put in your subject that /root file system is full and in the body of your message you put / is full. These are acutally two different things. Are you using the 'root' account to log in to the system? Are you installing ports for the 'root' user or another system user (for ex: your own personal user id)? [snip] + I got a bit carried away installing ports during installation (a kid in a+ candy store?) and currently have about 206 installed. That isn't bad: ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): pkg_info | wc -l [19:25 :: 004-03-03] 218 Would+ that be on root? Again, this raises red flags to me. You want to make sure you are using a different account than 'root'. You should use su(1) to get to superuser access. Read more about it in the documentation. I could be wrong, I just wanted to clarify. Glad every thing has been going well. // Asenchi ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /root file system full
On Wednesday 03 March 2004 04:51 pm, Ron Joordens Ron Joordens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good Morning, [...] My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem, what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Any thoughts? The / filesystem contains all of the other filesystems, either directly, or as mountpoints where other filesystems are mounted. But filesystems being mounted under / would not cause an error message that says / is full, so your first task is to figure out how things are configured on your system (I don't know what the default configuration is these days, or whether you used the defaults). As someone pointed out already, this information is obtained with the df command. If you can post the output of that will narrow down the possibilities. For background information: The / filesystem is the suggested default of 128mb. The handbook says that root is generally about 40mb of data and that 100mb should be enough to allow for future expansion needs, so 128mb should be adequate. During installation I installed everything, sources, ports, documentation, etc. My experience is that the suggested defaults are enough to get a basic system going, but tend to be a bit tight for a system on which you are going to install a lot of stuff and/or use for a long time. My own rule of thumb is to double all of the defaults, and have at least 3 GB for /usr on a workstation where a lot of miscellaneous programs are likely to be installed. My laptop has 4.6GB in /usr, and it's 90% full (but almost 1 GB of that is stuff I stored there temporarily). When you are first learning FreeBSD (or any *nix), there is something to be said for putting EVERYTHING in one partition (/), and using du to check to see how much /var, /usr, /tmp, /home, etc. are using once in a while. Eventually you will have a good idea of what your real needs are, and around that time you will be ready to clean everything up by wiping the system and doing a fresh install. Of course, you will need to figure out where to temporarily store /home and any important configuration files while you do the new installation. My prefered method is to just buy a new, larger hard drive and keep the old one around as a backup. I have CVSuped source to RELENG_4_9. I have CVSuped ports. I have recompiled the kernel 3 or 4 times. I have redirected the /tmp directory to /usr/tmp (these locations are from memory but you get the idea) I got a bit carried away installing ports during installation (a kid in a candy store?) and currently have about 206 installed. I have been updating ports recently using portupgrade with the recursive switches -rR. At the time the first filesystem full error message was seen I was portupgrading arts -Rr which was upgrading a lot of other ports as well. That process stopped with an error message stating that a conflict between xfmail and qt existed and that qt could not be upgraded untill xfmail was deinstalled so there may be a lot of working data still on the system. Would that be on root? The working files for the most part should be in /usr/ports, although I believe some are also in /tmp (that may be your problem). You should be able to delete the contents of /tmp without harm, particularly if you do it while shut down to single user mode, but /usr/tmp is supposed to persist across reboots and some things may get slightly confused when you delete their temp files. Slight confusion is certainly better than a dead system, though. The timing of the error messages also suggests the possibility that /var is part of / rather than being a separate filesystem, and that either the ports database and/or the log files are eating a large chunk of your space. If that is the case, it might be prudent to consider it a learning experience and start over. If necessary (and assuming that really is the problem), you can resurrect the system by some combination of deleting old logs, uninstalling unneeded ports, moving directories to other partitions and using symlinks (soft links) to make them appear in the right place, and don't forget to go back and delete old kernels you don't need any more if you are saving some of them just in case. Thanks for your help, Ron Joordens Melbourne, Australia Good luck, - Bob ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
