Debian Bug report logs - #15865
dpkg: please try not to use up all disk space

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Adrian Bridgett <adrian.bridgett@poboxes.com>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: dpkg: low diskspace

Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 22:38:48 +0000

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.4.0.19
Priority: wishlist

It would be nice if dpkg checked that it leaves say 5-10MB free on the disk
unless it is overridden with --force-nospace. As it runs as root it uses up
any reserved space. I recently hit this - it it had stopped then I could
easily have cleared some more space. I was lucky that this didn't happen
whilst installing an essential package.

Thanks

Adrian

email: adrian.bridgett@poboxes.com       | Debian Linux - www.debian.org
http://www.poboxes.com/adrian.bridgett   | Because bloated, unstable 
PGP key available on public key servers  | operating systems are from MS

Message #34 received at 15865-submitter@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Justin Pryzby <justinpryzby@users.sourceforge.net>

To: 15865-submitter@bugs.debian.org

Subject: this bug/15865: dpkg: please try not to use up all disk space

Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:21:49 -0400

dpkg: please try not to use up all disk space
http://bugs.debian.org/15865

Actually dpkg should already handle this pretty gracefully.  It uses
atomic rename()s after linking each file in a package for backup then
writing to a new filename.  So if you run out of disk space, the
maintscript rollbacks should get it back in the "configured" state for
the previous version.

Message #39 received at 15865-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>

To: adrian.bridgett@poboxes.com, 15865-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#15865: dpkg: low diskspace

Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 20:46:45 +0100

Control: tag -1 wontfix

Hi!

On Thu, 1997-12-11 at 22:38:48 +0000, Adrian Bridgett wrote:
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.4.0.19
> Priority: wishlist

> It would be nice if dpkg checked that it leaves say 5-10MB free on the disk
> unless it is overridden with --force-nospace. As it runs as root it uses up
> any reserved space. I recently hit this - it it had stopped then I could
> easily have cleared some more space. I was lucky that this didn't happen
> whilst installing an essential package.

I don't think this would be practical. dpkg would first need to check
every mount point in the system, discern which ones are relevant to
packages being installed (say /usr, but not /run), which might imply
carrying system-specific black/white-lists, and then check those after
every unpack. Even then the amount free might or might not be enough,
as that really depends on what's going to be installed.

I think the better way to handle this is to fail gracefully, because
even if we checked for free space, we'd still need to do that anyway.
This is what should be happening now already, as Justin Pryzby
mentioned on a followup. I'm thus closing this report.

Thanks,
Guillem

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