when /var is full adept stops working, kde menu editor stop

[Lars Noodén]

when the /var partition is full, it seems that many programs and functions stop working, but do not provide any clues as to the cause

adept seems to crash because of this, clearing up /var manually appears to be a work-around

the kde menu editor won't save any changes when /var is full, but doesn't complain

probably many other programs need /var but don't complain if it is full and they cannot write

I found this because today I have a spare machine set up for evaluation with too small a /var partition

This isn't a security problem per se, but does affect availability and reliability.

[Lars Noodén (larsnooden)]

the above comment is for the beta of gutsy gibbon on x86

[Ralph Janke (txwikinger)]

Thanks for submitting this report.

Generally, any linux/unix system does not work if the /var directory is full. However, in your particular case, it might be a different issue. Could you please provide more information about your partitioning? Could it be that /home and /etc (even /) are all the same filesystem?

It might be possible to make sure that kmenuedit will provide an error message, however in general, currently the issue must be fixed in a terminal. However, there is a discussion http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=409822 and a blueprint https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/warning-of-disk-being-full that are covering this issue.

[Lars Noodén (larsnooden)]

No, the system is no longer around it's been too many months to remember the details. It can be reliably reproduce by making a tiny /var partition and then running Adept.

[Ralph Janke (txwikinger)]

I am still not sure what you would consider a solution to the problem. Are you fine with the blueprint I referred to? There is no real solution that would make it impossible to fill up the /var partition.

Thanks

[Ralph Janke (txwikinger)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[Lars Noodén (larsnooden)]

# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 5.5G 3.5G 1.8G 67% /
varrun 252M 88K 252M 1% /var/run
varlock 252M 0 252M 0% /var/lock
udev 252M 76K 252M 1% /dev
devshm 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 252M 34M 218M 14% /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile
/dev/sda3 29G 344M 27G 2% /home
/dev/sda2 2.8G 699M 2.0G 27% /var

[Lars Noodén (larsnooden)]

So it's probably not common that /var fills. However some important utilities like Adept should complain. They are used often at the first beginning and if the /var partition is too small problems will show up then. Also, later when packages are installed or updated, apt's cache fills the partition up with unneeded files.

[Ralph Janke (txwikinger)]

Lars,

maybe you can discuss your ideas with the participants of the blueprint mentioned above. This would be an issue for apt and not for kdebase anyway.

Thanks

[Lars Noodén (larsnooden)]

It's one problem that affects several applications.

[Lars Noodén (larsnooden)]

The current blueprint link is "Proper operation after disk full situation is resolved"
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/full-filesystem-sanity-gutsy