Too many old kernels are kept causing the /boot partition to become full and kernel updates to fail.

[Wyatt J. Brown]

System Info:
Ubuntu 12.10, Destop and Server, amd64 and i386
With LUKS encryption setup by the installer
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What is happening:
When updating to the latest kernel version the install fails due to a full /boot partition. This is caused by an excess amount of old kernels that are kept installed.
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What should be happening:
Only the kernel version that is one behind the current installed one should be kept.

For example if the current version of the kernel was linux-image-3.5.0-24-generic, linux-image-3.5.0-23-generic should be kept installed. If the kernel is updated to linux-image-3.5.0-25-generic, linux-image-3.5.0-24-generic should be kept but linux-image-3.5.0-23-generic should be removed. There is no need to keep more than one old kernel version installed.
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Notes:
Computers without LUKS encryption will not have installs fail as they don't have a separate /boot partition, nevertheless it is still a waste of storage space.

This could also be a possible security issue for users that have LUKS encryption and do not know to remove old kernel versions. For example, if a user encountered this error when updating the kernel and could not update it anymore, they might just stop updating it as they do not know how to fix the issue.

When I first encountered this issue on my own computers I went to the #ubuntu IRC channel. After removing the old kernels one of the people in the channel told me that in the last few hours five people came in for help with this issue.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1131512/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 1131512

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Wyatt J. Brown (sushidudeteam)]

I already removed the old kernels from all of my affected systems, so I don't know if the apport information will be of any use anymore. Anyway, apport information is not even needed as I have already diagnosed the problem.

[f00fbug (topolm5678)]

This could be also a problem for people which are using a LVM setup where you have also a small /boot partition. With some updates /boot get to small and you have to manually uninstall some old kernels otherwise /boot get to small and new kernel updates fail.