/var Filesystem Space

Joe Smith jes at martnet.com
Mon Dec 4 17:23:51 UTC 2006


Gene Poole wrote:
> I've got /var on a separate filesystem.  Since I've upgraded to FC6, I've
> discovered that the space is not adequate to support the FC6 updates.  ...

Yum wants to download /all/ the rpms that are available for updates. For 
new releases, there is usually a big pile of updates for a time just 
after the release as many kinks get attention. As the release matures, 
the number of updates gets smaller, so you shouldn't need to permanently 
allocate more space.

You can either a) partition the updates (do several partial updates) or 
b) point /var/cache/yum/updates/packages at a temp dir on another 
partition with more space. You have to do (a) manually (AFAIK) and I 
think it would be a real pain to manage, so (b) sounds like the better 
option.

I would approach it like this:

## on a partition with lots of space (0.5-1G?)
TEMP=/home/packages

yum clean packages        ## clear any package files
mkdir $TEMP
cd /var/cache/yum/updates
mv packages _packages     ## just temporary
ln -s $TEMP               ## link to whatever dir you created above
yum update
yum clean packages        ## probably not necessary
rm packages               ## remove temp link
rmdir $TEMP               ## remove temp dir
mv _packages packages     ## restore original dir

You'll have to figure out where you have some space and edit the 
'TEMP=...' line. For me, most of my free space is on /home, so I might 
use TEMP=/home/packages. If you have lots of space on your root 
partition, you can use TEMP=/tmp/packages.

<Joe




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