/boot maintenance

Tyler J. Wagner tyler at tolaris.com
Wed Sep 5 13:56:29 UTC 2012


Hi Dean,

I agree; a 100 MB boot is just silly. So, run a daily script with this in it.

http://www.tolaris.com/2012/07/19/removing-old-kernels-from-ubuntu/

That purges any kernel that isn't either the highest-versioned one, or one
which is currently running.

Regards,
Tyler

On 2012-09-05 14:44, Dean Henrichsmeyer wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I realize this has been covered in the past but I've been observing more of
> it lately so thought I'd revisit it. Here's the problem I've been
> observing. Service providers that offer dedicated servers running Ubuntu
> default to 100MB /boot partitions. This is true of providers like Peer1,
> Softlayer, etc. Granted, you can fix that by re-provisioning the machine
> with your own partition preferences prior to putting your
> data/configuration on the host but most won't note the potential problem
> until it's too late.
> 
> So what happens is if you use something that keeps the machine up to date
> like Landscape or something of your own, /boot is going to fill up fast. As
> far as I can tell, Ubuntu Server doesn't tell you that you need a reboot
> when a new kernel is installed like Desktop does and it's no time at all
> before /boot is filled up. If you're not monitoring your partitions and/or
> manually house cleaning /boot consistently, you're going to run into problems.
> 
> I realize the ideal thing would be to get providers to change their
> defaults to something more modern that is in line with the size of today's
> disks and kernels. That being said, I also think it would be really nice to
> set a policy or something on the number of kernels you keep around. I'd
> like users getting dedicated servers running Ubuntu to have a positive
> experience. I don't know if anything is planned in this area but I thought
> I'd provide some feedback in case it factors in.
> 
> Thanks,
> Dean
> 
> 

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"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures
which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason
to go into space – each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones
who made the irrational decision."
   -- Randal Munroe




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