Re: Root directory filling up...

From: Nikolas Britton (freebsd_at_nbritton.org)
Date: 12/14/04

  • Next message: Mark Probert: "Network config issue" 
    Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:53:02 -0600
To: "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." <kdk@daleco.biz>

    Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. wrote:

    > Kiffin Gish wrote:
    >
    >> Nikolas Britton wrote:
    >>
    >>> Kiffin Gish wrote:
    >>>
    >>>> I recently decided to dump windows and take a much deserved
    >>>> breather with
    >>>> FreeBSD. So I installed 5.3 and was in for a real treat!
    >>>>
    >>>> However, I created a /-directory with 4G and installed the complete
    >>>> ports
    >>>> stuff from the CD. Now my root directory is almost filled up (after I
    >>>> installed all the Gnome Desktop stuff).
    >>>>
    >>>> I always do a make clean. Is there an easier way to only keep the
    >>>> ports
    >>>> stuff that is 'really' required?
    >>>>
    >>>> I noticed that there are tons of tarballs etc. in the
    >>>> /usr/ports/distfiles
    >>>> directory. Is it safe to delete all of these?
    >>>>
    >>>> Are there any other suggestions to keep my root directory from
    >>>> filling up?
    >>>>
    >>> What do you mean / is filling up? the default during install is to make
    >>> 5 partitions /, Swap, /tmp, /var, and /usr.
    >>>
    >>> See mine for example:
    >>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
    >>> /dev/ad0s1a 739M 64M 616M 9% /
    >>> devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev
    >>> /dev/ad0s1e 739M 15M 665M 2% /tmp
    >>> /dev/ad0s1f 69G 25G 38G 40% /usr
    >>> /dev/ad0s1d 739M 59M 621M 9% /var
    >>> /dev/ad1s1 28G 24G 3.8G 86% /mnt
    >>> linprocfs 4.0K 4.0K 0B 100%
    >>> /usr/compat/linux/proc
    >>>
    >>> The most you should need for / is 128MB (I think that is default during
    >>> install)
    >>>
    >>>
    >>> please sent the output of these commands "df -h", "more /etc/fstab",
    >>> and
    >>> "disklabel ad0s1"
    >>>
    >> bash-2.05b$ df -h
    >> Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
    >> /dev/ad0s4a 3.9G 2.5G 1.1G 70% /
    >> devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev
    >> /dev/ad0s4d 7.4G 5.9M 6.8G 0% /home
    >>
    >> This was the recommended setup according to the book The Complete
    >> FreeBSD, but now I realize this is probably not the best choice.
    >>
    >> bash-2.05b$ more /etc/fstab
    >> # Device Mountpoint FStype Options
    >> Dump Pass#
    >> /dev/ad0s4b none swap sw
    >> 0 0
    >> /dev/ad0s4a / ufs rw
    >> 1 1
    >> /dev/ad0s4d /home ufs rw
    >> 2 2
    >> /dev/acd0 /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto
    >> 0 0
    >>
    >> su-2.05b# disklabel ad0s1
    >> disklabel: /dev/ad0s1: no valid label found
    >
    >
    >
    > That would need to be `disklabel /dev/ad0s4`, then.
    >
    > As to the distfiles question, you can safely remove all
    > of them as long as you don't mind downloading them
    > again if, for some reason, something needs to be
    > recompiled.
    >
    > Your real problem is that you've got /tmp (temporary
    > disposable stuff, generally), /var/ (mail, logs, database
    > storage, etc.) and /usr (programs, source, documents,
    > the ports tree, the buildworld target directory, etc), all
    > in your root partition, which is just barely big enough to
    > hold all that stuff unless you do your housekeeping very
    > regularly (and thoroughly).
    >
    > A possible hack, in case you don't wish to backup and
    > reinstall, or learn about growfs(8), [which may be what
    > Nick is getting at by asking for disklabel output]:
    >
    > Move some stuff to your /home partition, and then
    > create symlinks to it from its original location.
    >
    > Some candidates: /tmp, /var/log, /root/, /usr/ports,
    > /usr/src, /usr/obj, /usr/local ...
    >
    > Now, I can't say which would be best; it depends
    > on what's filling up so fast (probably /usr, if you've
    > added X, or really many ports at all) and there might
    > be some security or other issues I'm not aware of,
    > but it's a valid strategy for at least the short term.
    >
    > So, let's say we wanted to move the ports tree and
    > our source tree to /home. As root:
    >
    > # cd /usr
    > # mv ports /home/
    > # mv src /home/
    > # ln -s /home/ports ports
    > # ln -s /home/src src
    >
    > Like I said, it's a hack, but it's an available one ;-)
    >
    > Another possibility, though it's possibly more
    > nerve wracking, would be to do something like this:
    >
    > 1. Drop to single user mode in console.
    > 2. Do something like this:
    >
    > change /etc/fstab from:
    > /dev/ad0s4d /home ufs rw
    > 2 2
    > to:
    > /dev/ad0s4d /usr ufs rw
    > 2 2
    >
    > Then:
    > #mkdir /home/home
    > #mv /home/* /home/home/
    > (*note that this will give you one error message,
    > but should still work.)
    > #mv /usr/* /home
    >
    > and then reboot. After rebooting, you will need
    > to make sure that it's possible to get to /usr/home by
    > typing "cd /home", so another symlink would be required.
    > Note that I said, this could be scary --- I don't foresee
    > any potential problems, but if you've never had
    > to recover from a fuzted command using only
    > /bin/sh and the contents of /, it can be a hair-raising
    > experience.
    >
    > Maybe Nick can chime in and say what he thinks;
    > [or someone else --- maybe you should've asked the
    > questions@freebsd.org mailing list, instead of newbies]
    > It might be that growfs isn't that difficult and it is,
    > after all, designed for this purpose.
    >
    > HTH,
    >
    > Kevin Kinsey
    >
    No not really, I just thought the disklabel output might be useful to
    determine what partitions and slices are on the disk, maybe he's dual
    booting and has a DOS/NTFS partition on the drive etc.. The easiest
    thing you can do, if you don't have alot of important data on it or can
    easily back it up, is use this as a learning experience and do a
    complete reinstall. When you get to the disklabel part when reinstalling
    use A for autodefaults.
    http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-steps.html#SYSINSTALL-LABEL2
    Else, I would buy a new hard drive, $50 will get you a 40GB hard drive
    online, reinstall freebsd (minimal install) using the recommended disk
    layout from the freebsd handbook (or autodefaults) and then mount the
    old drive and restore it onto the new one, or something to that effect.

    What edition of The Complete FreeBSD do you have? I find it hard to
    believe that greg would advice against using the handbook's
    recommendations but then I've never read his book, I got Absolute BSD
    (Michael Lucas) last year for Christmas, and may just be taking this out
    of context.
    _______________________________________________
    freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org mailing list
    http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-newbies
    To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-newbies-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"

  • Next message: Mark Probert: "Network config issue"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: FreeBSD 5.3: panic page fault with nge driver
      ... Any recommendations? ... > I am getting a page fault with a new install of FreeBSD 5.3 Release. ... > However, when i set the media options for nge0, the machine panics and ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: SBS2003 Partitioning
      ... putting any server into production with 384MB of RAM? ... Go with the recommendations you are getting here and you'll be much more ... 80 GB drives are ludicrously small in today's market. ... Allocate at least 40 GB to the system partition and forget ...
      (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
    • Re: How to increase the size of the System Partition?
      ... Bjorn, just an upadate on your recommendations... ... you would need to delete the partition ... >>Another option is to perform an upgrade installation, ...
      (microsoft.public.win2000.setup)
    • (add new users & groups)
      ... I've ordered a FreeBSD book based on the recommendations I received here ... > This will give you the configuration dialog, ... To unsubscribe, ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: DVD Burner
      ... Any recommendations on which models are friendly with FreeBSD? ... Many internal EIDE burners work perfectly fine with Unix. ... Also, it's not whether or not it works with FreeBSD I think, but rather whether or not it's supported with dvd+rw-tools. ... If you are concerned about hardware support still though, try to find one which was not released just recently as the probability of it being supported is lower than some other slightly older burners. ...
      (freebsd-questions)