Debian Bug report logs - #239758
debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again

Package: base-installer; Maintainer for base-installer is Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>;

Reported by: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 06:18:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Reply or subscribe to this bug.

View this report as an mbox folder, status mbox, maintainer mbox


Report forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>
Subject: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 07:05:27 +0100
Package: debian-installer
Severity: normal

If I try to install the base system, and it fails for some reason
(like exim not configuring), and then I in the mindframe of either

1) an optimistic user, thinking "well maybe if I try again"
or
2) an curious user that don't know where the logs are, hence
decides to try again and pay attention to tty3 this time

goes back to installing it *again*, after first deleting and
recreating the partition (since not doing so results in errors
from awk installation), then the following error message
results on tty3:

tar: Write Error: No space left on device

and "df" indeed shows the tmpfs to be full.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.25-1-k7
Locale: LANG=no_NO.ISO-8859-1, LC_CTYPE=no_NO.ISO-8859-1



Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: Acknowledgement (debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again)
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 07:32:10 +0100
If it makes a difference, this was after a couple of failures to go back
to reformat the partitions (which were because I had cd-ed into /target
on tty2, before I figured it out and cd-ed out so I could reformat the
partitions)





Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Joey Hess <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #15 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
To: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 02:07:37 -0500
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Ove Kaaven wrote:
> If I try to install the base system, and it fails for some reason
> (like exim not configuring), and then I in the mindframe of either
> 
> 1) an optimistic user, thinking "well maybe if I try again"
> or
> 2) an curious user that don't know where the logs are, hence
> decides to try again and pay attention to tty3 this time
> 
> goes back to installing it *again*, after first deleting and
> recreating the partition (since not doing so results in errors
> from awk installation), then the following error message
> results on tty3:
> 
> tar: Write Error: No space left on device
> 
> and "df" indeed shows the tmpfs to be full.

How much ram do you have? 64 mb?

-- 
see shy jo
[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #20 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>
To: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 08:59:21 +0100
ons, 24.03.2004 kl. 08.07 skrev Joey Hess:
> How much ram do you have? 64 mb?

The machine has 512 MB.





Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Joey Hess <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #25 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
To: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 03:32:03 -0500
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Ove Kaaven wrote:
> ons, 24.03.2004 kl. 08.07 skrev Joey Hess:
> > How much ram do you have? 64 mb?
> 
> The machine has 512 MB.

Wow! 400+ mb of log files. Do you have a sample?

-- 
see shy jo
[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #30 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>
To: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:06:12 +0100
ons, 24.03.2004 kl. 09.32 skrev Joey Hess:
> Ove Kaaven wrote:
> > ons, 24.03.2004 kl. 08.07 skrev Joey Hess:
> > > How much ram do you have? 64 mb?
> > 
> > The machine has 512 MB.
> 
> Wow! 400+ mb of log files. Do you have a sample?

Sorry, didn't know where whatever was using that space could be (there
was no "du" command available), and I don't have it running anymore.
Perhaps you could say where the usage is likely to be since there's a
chance I will run it again (I am banging against the 137GB barrier I
think). But I was under the the impression that the installer was trying
to unpack debs without remembering to mount /target first, actually,
after I went back and forth between partitioning and installing base
system a few times (with a few errors thrown in between the two).





Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Joey Hess <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #35 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
To: Ove Kaaven <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 11:34:43 -0500
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Ove Kaaven wrote:
> Sorry, didn't know where whatever was using that space could be (there
> was no "du" command available), and I don't have it running anymore.
> Perhaps you could say where the usage is likely to be since there's a
> chance I will run it again (I am banging against the 137GB barrier I
> think). But I was under the the impression that the installer was trying
> to unpack debs without remembering to mount /target first, actually,
> after I went back and forth between partitioning and installing base
> system a few times (with a few errors thrown in between the two).

Well, yes, it's possible something messed up with /target, though it
shouldn't. That should not have used more than 200 mb of memory though.

The logs are /var/log/messages, /var/log/syslog and /var/log/partman.
Given how much memory seems to have been used, I think one much have
been growing constantly, possibly from the kernel logs..

-- 
see shy jo
[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Jeremie Koenig <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #40 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jeremie Koenig <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 23:05:25 +0100
On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 11:34:43AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> Well, yes, it's possible something messed up with /target, though it
> shouldn't. That should not have used more than 200 mb of memory though.

tmpfs is mounted with an arbitrary size=100M, because it's otherwise too
small on systems with limited memory.

-- 
Jeremie Koenig <[email protected]>



Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>:
Bug#239758; Package debian-installer. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Joey Hess <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Install System Team <[email protected]>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #45 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joey Hess <[email protected]>
To: Jeremie Koenig <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#239758: debian-installer: tmpfs disk gets full when trying bootstrapping again
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 18:48:53 -0500
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Jeremie Koenig wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 11:34:43AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> > Well, yes, it's possible something messed up with /target, though it
> > shouldn't. That should not have used more than 200 mb of memory though.
> 
> tmpfs is mounted with an arbitrary size=100M, because it's otherwise too
> small on systems with limited memory.

Thanks, I'd forgotten about that. Ok, then, not having /target mounted
could explain a full tmpfs here.

-- 
see shy jo
[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Bug reassigned from package `debian-installer' to `base-installer'. Request was from Joey Hess <[email protected]> to [email protected]. (full text, mbox, link).


Send a report that this bug log contains spam.


Debian bug tracking system administrator <[email protected]>. Last modified: Tue May 13 12:50:05 2025; Machine Name: buxtehude

Debian Bug tracking system

Debbugs is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2. The current version can be obtained from https://bugs.debian.org/debbugs-source/.

Copyright © 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson, 2005-2017 Don Armstrong, and many other contributors.