Default, encrypted install runs out of /boot space after 2 months

[Jackalux]

This bug is about the installer defaults, not this symptom of the bug.

I installed a fresh encrypted* install of 18.04 on a laptop with a 750GB HDD. The update-manager reported that I'd ran out of space within 2 months and could not perform updates.
* AFAIK, encrypted installs place /boot in a separate partition

'apt autoremove' didn't remove anything and only running the advice from http://tuxtweaks.com/2010/10/remove-old-kernels-in-ubuntu-with-one-command/ worked, which seems to leave me with no backup kernel.

This would turn off Noobs who want something that doesn't require almost immediate, then ongoing, tech intervention.

Does the installer need to change the allocated size of /boot in new installs? Noobs will run back to Windoze if they encounter this... it looks like a fresh install has a shelf life of two months unless you learn to fiddle around under the bonnet/hood.

Blessed are the coders!
J

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you provide some details about how many kernels were in your /boot partition? We've put a lot of work into improving the autoremoval of old kernels and I'm curious to have more details about how 'apt autoremove' didn't work. Thanks!

[Jackalux (heartwoodjack)]

Thanks very much for the reply, Brian.

I'm really grateful for the work that's gone into this as it used to be a bane of my previous install (12.04). That was merely an encrypted /home with carefully researched and chosen (guessed) partition sizes; this however is a default, entirely encrypted option of 18.04.

From memory, I saw only one old kernel (I never see the purple boot menu to select a kernel) and was amazed that I could be out of space.

Screenshot of folder properties for /boot from Nautilus is attached (I'm obvs a Noob after all these years)

Current folder listing is:
/boot$ ls -a -h -l
total 143M
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1.0K Jun 21 18:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4.0K Jun 21 18:19 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K May 6 17:59 config-4.15.0-50-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K May 15 13:48 config-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K Jun 4 21:33 config-4.15.0-52-generic
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1.0K Jun 21 18:22 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57M Jun 21 18:21 initrd.img-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57M Jun 21 18:22 initrd.img-4.15.0-52-generic
drwx------ 2 root root 12K May 10 11:01 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 179K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+.elf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
-rw------- 1 root root 3.9M May 6 17:59 System.map-4.15.0-50-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 3.9M May 15 13:48 System.map-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 3.9M Jun 4 21:33 System.map-4.15.0-52-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 8.0M May 15 15:11 vmlinuz-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 8.0M Jun 4 21:39 vmlinuz-4.15.0-52-generic

Partition info from GParted:
sda = 698.64 GiB
sda1 = 243.00 MiB /boot ext2
sda2 = 698.40 GiB extended
sda5 = 698.40 GiB ubuntu-vg [Encrypted] lvm2 pv

I may always be making a mistake or misremembering something but I'm being as thorough as I know how. I hope I'm not wasting any of your time!

Cheers

[Jackalux (heartwoodjack)]

Hi again,
After an automatic update it's about to happen again (I got a low disk space warning for /boot) so I'll list details and see what happens.

/boot$ ls -a -h -l
total 208M
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1.0K Jun 29 10:52 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4.0K Jun 29 10:51 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K May 15 13:48 config-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K Jun 4 21:33 config-4.15.0-52-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K Jun 24 10:39 config-4.15.0-54-generic
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1.0K Jun 29 10:53 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57M Jun 21 18:21 initrd.img-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57M Jun 29 10:52 initrd.img-4.15.0-52-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57M Jun 29 10:52 initrd.img-4.15.0-54-generic
drwx------ 2 root root 12K May 10 11:01 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 179K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+.elf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
-rw------- 1 root root 3.9M May 15 13:48 System.map-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 3.9M Jun 4 21:33 System.map-4.15.0-52-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 3.9M Jun 24 10:39 System.map-4.15.0-54-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 8.0M May 15 15:11 vmlinuz-4.15.0-51-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 8.0M Jun 4 21:39 vmlinuz-4.15.0-52-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 8.0M Jun 24 11:21 vmlinuz-4.15.0-54-generic

Free space is listed as 7.1MB

Results of sudo apt autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
  linux-headers-4.15.0-51 linux-headers-4.15.0-51-generic
  linux-image-4.15.0-51-generic linux-modules-4.15.0-51-generic
  linux-modules-extra-4.15.0-51-generic
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 5 to remove and 7 not to upgrade.
After this operation, 334 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 233764 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing linux-headers-4.15.0-51-generic (4.15.0-51.55) ...
Removing linux-headers-4.15.0-51 (4.15.0-51.55) ...
Removing linux-modules-extra-4.15.0-51-generic (4.15.0-51.55) ...
Removing linux-image-4.15.0-51-generic (4.15.0-51.55) ...
/etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Deleting /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-51-generic
/etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub:
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-54-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-54-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-52-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-52-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin
done
Removing linux-modules-4.15.0-51-generic (4.15.0-51.55) ...

Not all of this 334MB has been cleared from /boot
Here is another file listing:

total 139M
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1.0K Jun 29 11:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4.0K Jun 29 10:51 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K Jun 4 21:33 config-4.15.0-52-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 213K Jun 24 10:39 config-4.15.0-54-generic
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1.0K Jun 29 11:07 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57M Jun 29 10:52 initrd.img-4.15.0-52-g...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for update-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]