[REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

toad · 2009-04-18 18:01:02

Ah, I reckon I might have shot my install

I was running out of space and seeing that /var took up some 3GB I decided to move it to another partition and adjust the fstab accordingly. It all worked but on reboot hal didn't start. I tried to reinstall it with pacman and now I am told:

error: database path is undefined
error: could not register 'core' database (could not open database)

Am I shot???

Last edited by toad (2009-04-18 23:15:15)

madeye · 2009-04-18 20:22:50

What if you bootup on a livecd and comment out the var partition (in fstab). Can you start your system then? Or did you delete the files from the original var folder?

Last edited by madeye (2009-04-18 20:24:18)

toad · 2009-04-18 20:40:07

Yep, I had no more space left. /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ was at something approaching 3GBs. Instead of simply deleting it I moved the entire /var over and deleted the original...

.:B:. · 2009-04-18 20:47:26

Did you perform the move on a running system? If so you might have broken some stuff. /var should never be moved on a live system (unless you know how to fix it).

I have split out /var before (or 'recycled' it with new installs) but apart from having to correct some dirs and permissions I haven't had problems.

This mostly looks like a pacman database problem, I'm sure there is some way to regenerate the database. Try removing everything in

/var/lib/pacman/sync/

and run

pacman -Sy

Chrysalis · 2009-04-18 20:57:11

You probably have to remove/move the old /var to mount the new one in its place...

Last edited by Chrysalis (2009-04-18 21:02:48)

toad · 2009-04-18 22:06:11

@ B
No, I didn't use the system, I was on partedmagic at the time.

As it happens I sort of panicked as I need the system and used the opportunity to do a new install. This was my third install and I am getting rather good at it

One question:
As I was cussing and cursing because I @!#$ up my system my laptop conked out on me as well. Same reason, i.e. /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ was bonged up with nearly 3GB. I took the plunge and deleted it. My laptop is still running nicely - is that then what everybody does? I take it there is no pressing need to keep that data?

.:B:. · 2009-04-18 22:22:05

All that's in /var/cache/pacman/pkg are packages. You can keep packages if you're afraid something will break and only rolling back to older packages will fix it (which for some people it does), but there are some mirrors out there that update slower than others (so the thing is to pick a mirror that syncs often, so if you really need to downgrade, you can grab the older packages from a slower mirror for example).

I clean out my package cache periodically. If something breaks and I need to roll back (which happened to me with the bluetooth upgrade) I usually check the web CVS frontend for the PKGBUILDs and rebuild what I need.

In general, there's no reason to hold on to your cache - and certainly not that big a cache. If you keep it under a GB you should be safe, generally that covers most if not all packages you installed, one version back. You'll have to sift, though.

toad · 2009-04-18 22:31:20

Thanks a bunch - that is good info which I haven't come across yet (read the Beginner's Guide, first things to do after a new install a couple of others). Positively begs for a bash script with awk...

.:B:. · 2009-04-18 23:07:16

Well if you write one, let me know . I keep my cache because my mom's Arch box is on a dog slow DSL line, and most of the packages I pull in need to be installed on her system anyway, but that means I keep my cache until I go visit her and only clean it out after I ssh'ed into her box, synced, checked what packages she'd need, and put them all on my USB stick - and sometimes I can have three or four versions of the same package in my cache.

toad · 2009-04-18 23:14:09

Woof. It shouldn't be too difficult, perhaps I'll get round to it one of these days.

Anyway, I should really mark this as solved...

BTW, are there any other space hoggers in /var or wherever I and others should know about? This is the first I stumbled across, having only started Arch a few months ago.

perbh · 2009-04-19 04:09:39

du -sk /var/*

.:B:. · 2009-04-20 14:45:53

Log files can fill up - but that's the indication something goes terribly wrong on your system if they start eating space away.

You should configure logrotate to rotate and compress old logs.

toad · 2009-04-20 14:55:48

Thanks for the input.

I've used du -h --max-depth=1 but I like the s flag. Thanks.

And my logs are minimal. We are talking single figures in MB over four or five months...

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-18 18:01:02

[REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#2 2009-04-18 20:22:50

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#3 2009-04-18 20:40:07

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#4 2009-04-18 20:47:26

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#5 2009-04-18 20:57:11

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#6 2009-04-18 22:06:11

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#7 2009-04-18 22:22:05

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#8 2009-04-18 22:31:20

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#9 2009-04-18 23:07:16

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#10 2009-04-18 23:14:09

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#11 2009-04-19 04:09:39

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#12 2009-04-20 14:45:53

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

#13 2009-04-20 14:55:48

Re: [REINSTALL] moved /var to another partition - now everything is borked

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