Re: Updating kernels impossible when /boot is getting full

[David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com>]

On 7/31/21 9:20 PM, Ilkka Huotari wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm using Ubuntu 21. My /boot partition size is 500M and it's getting full:
>
> /dev/sda1               446M  352M   61M  86% /boot
>
> What's taking space are mainly these:
>
> -rw-r--r--  1 root root 153M heinä  10 14:22 initrd.img-5.11.0-22-generic
> -rw-r--r--  1 root root 151M heinä  23 13:13 initrd.img-5.11.0-25-generic
>
> apt-get upgrade fails:
>
> update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-25-generic
> Error 24 : Write error : cannot write compressed block
> E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 lz4 -9 -l 24
> update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-25-generic with 1.
> dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure):
>   installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess
> returned error exit status 1
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>   initramfs-tools
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
>
> Resizing the partitions is very complicated because I'm using an encrypted
> partition ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ResizeEncryptedPartitions ).
> So that's really not an option for me.
>
> How to fix this:
>
> I suggest that apt-get/dpkg handles upgrading outside /boot. Two kernels
> seem to fit there if the updating is done cleverly. Or if only one kernel
> fits, then keep only on kernel in /boot.
>
> Thanks,
> Ilkka


A 500 GB boot partition would be enough for several kernels, etc., on 
Debian 10 amd64.


Please post (where /dev/sdX is your system device):

    # fdisk -l /dev/sdX

    # du -msx /boot /

    # ls -l /boot


David