Whilst upgrading an Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS box, I hit messages such as: -
...
Ign:25 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-security/universe s390x Packages
Err:27 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-security/universe s390x c-n-f Metadata
Write error - write (28: No space left on device)
Ign:14 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-updates/universe Translation-en
Get:28 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-security/multiverse s390x Packages [3,232 B]
Get:26 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-security/universe Translation-en [154 kB]
Err:26 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-security/universe Translation-en
Err:9 http://ubuntu.example.net/ubuntu-ports focal-updates/main Translation-en
Write error - write (28: No space left on device)
...
which was somewhat worrying.
I checked my available disk space: -
df -kmh
and noticed that /var was full: -
/dev/mapper/basevg-var 2.9G 2.8G 8.8M 100% /var
Noting that that file-system has 2.9 GB of space, I wanted to see what was eating it: -
du -hs /var/* | sort -h
0/var/lock
0/var/run
4.0K/var/local
12K/var/opt
16K/var/lost+found
32K/var/spool
40K/var/tmp
648K/var/mail
2.0M/var/backups
405M/var/log
1.2G/var/lib
1.3G/var/cache
I took a random guess, and assumed that /var/cache was somehow related to Aptitude ( apt ), given the error that I was seeing.
Thankfully, the internet ( as ever ) has the answer: -
The trick is to run: -
sudo apt-get clean
Given that I'm already running as root, I ran: -
apt-get clean
which returns nothing but ....
du -hs /var/* | sort -h
0/var/lock
0/var/run
4.0K/var/local
12K/var/opt
16K/var/lost+found
32K/var/spool
40K/var/tmp
648K/var/mail
2.0M/var/backups
8.6M/var/cache
405M/var/log
1.2G/var/lib
so /var/cache is now 8.6 MB rather than 1.3 GB, and /var is way smaller: -
df -kmh
/dev/mapper/basevg-var 2.9G 1.6G 1.3G 56% /var
and, perhaps, more importantly, my upgrade runs to completion : -
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
Nice!