Re: Automatic upgrades stalls on the last kernel release
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 15:56:52 +0100
Paul Lewis <apflewis@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I seem to have a problem with automatic updates on my system. The AU
> system has been unable to function normally for some time and I now
> have something like 61 updates waiting in the queue.
>
>
> When I try to process the updates, it seems to choke on the Linux 3.2
> for 64 bit PCs entry, which is linux-image-3.2.0-4-amd64-3.2.60-1
> +deb7u1 (64bit)
>
> reported as 23.4MBs.
>
> The error is "Failed to process request." and more details
> are -
>
> 'cannot copy extracted data for '.lib/modules/3.2.0-4amd64/kernel/
> drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt61pci.ko' to
> '/lib/modules/3.2.0-4-amd64/
> kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt61pci.ko.dpkg-new'.
>
> If I manually copy the file and rerun the update, it just produces a
> similar error message with a different file name.
>
> df returns the following;
> test:# df
> Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
> rootfs 329233 270345 41890 87% /
> udev 10240 0 10240 0% /dev
> tmpfs 406020 1892 404128 1% /run
> /dev/mapper/test-root 329233 270345 41890 87% /
> tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock
> tmpfs 812020 148 811872 1% /run/shm
> /dev/sdb1 233191 18789 201961 9% /boot
> /dev/mapper/test-home 39502452 5852096 31643728 16% /home
> /dev/mapper/test-tmp 376807 10303 347048 3% /tmp
> /dev/mapper/test-usr 8647944 4809964 3398684 59% /usr
> /dev/mapper/test-var 2882592 971236 1764924 36% /var
> test#
>
> 1. I'm wondering if it's a disk space issue.
>
Almost certainly. Kernels aren't that big, but the /lib/modules/* that
match them are now 100MB-ish. When you install a new kernel, you need
that space, but an upgrade of the same kernel release should work in
less.
> Can I purge all the update queue and try to update the kernel on its
> own then the remaining updates.
>
You have run out of space for something kernel-sized. Do you have an
old kernel you can get rid of? 270MB on / with separate /var and /usr
looks like two kernels-worth.
I've run into this one on my server, and will have to reorganise disc
space before the next upgrade. 300MB used to be more than enough for /,
but isn't now. I keep a spare kernel, and will have to lose it before I
upgrade to another release, though that shouldn't be a problem as I
think I would have seen any problems with the running kernel by now.
Also, a separate /usr, which has been routine until recently, is now a
bad idea, as some of it may be needed at boot time. Not yet a
show-stopper, but one day it will be. From your kernel, you are
presumably running stable, and the next stable will use systemd, with a
lot of re-jigged software.
You can nudge things around a bit without too much trouble on LVM to
get some more space on / (but it still isn't quite a trivial job,
depending on physical location and whether there is unused space or you
have to shrink something else). In the very long term, you will need to
merge / and /usr, but the trouble is that /usr must be put into /, not
the other way round, so there's a fair bit of messing about involved if
you need to minimise downtime. You can't pull /lib/modules out into
another partition, as that is very definitely required at boot time.
If you don't have an old kernel in there, you're looking at some LVM
shifting, and if your drive is four or five years old, it might be time
to consider replacement, which makes things much easier. My main
workstation drive is now five years old, and I'm waiting for its
replacement to arrive. I'll probably also replace the server drive when
I need to upgrade stable on that.
--
Joe
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