Bug#516303: apt downloaded (or created?) a 10 gigabyte diffindex file
Package: apt
Version: 0.7.20.2
Yesterday apt-get update either downloaded, or created, a 10Gbyte
diffindex file. Apparently it only stopped because it filled up /var,
which broke some services running on the same system.
richard@araminta:/var/lib/apt/lists/partial$ ls -l
total 9242292
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 386 2009-02-14 14:07
ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release.gpg.reverify
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2879 2009-02-18 08:38
ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-amd64_Packages.diff_2009-02-18-0837.56
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2009-02-18 02:42
ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_Release.gpg.reverify
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9446486016 2009-02-19 07:38
http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-amd64_Packages.DiffIndex
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 386 2009-02-14 14:07
http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release.gpg.reverify
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5670002 2009-02-13 02:02
http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-amd64_Packages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2659686 2009-02-13 02:16
http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_source_Sources
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2009-02-18 02:42
http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_Release.gpg.reverify
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 2009-02-15 15:23
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release.gpg.reverify
You can see this underway in a snapshot of my MRTG output too:
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/junk/araminta_var-day.png
I'm afraid I don't know if it was the mirror or apt going haywire. Even
if it was the mirror then perhaps apt ought to have some kind of sanity
check to avoid downloading unreasonably large amounts of data (if
'unreasonably large' can be sensibly defined).
A subsequent hand run of 'apt-get update' doesn't show this behavior.
ttfn/rjk
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