LKBEN11000: No space on the root filesystem due to /var/cache
LKB | Created: 02/04/2020 | Version: 0 | Language: EN | Rating: 0 | Outdated: False | Marked for deletion: False
Author: Wim Peeters - Keskon GmbH & Co. KG
Symptom
The /var/cache directory is extremely big and takes all the space on the root filesystem
Cause
This might happen on a system when you never clean up your apt cache
Solution
The solution is easy. You just need to cleanup your apt cache. This can be done with the following command:
apt-get clean
You can control the result with:
du -sh /var/cache
or
df -h
The cache can grow to several gigabytes and occupy all space. When you do have failures that you cannot create any files, temporary files or even cannot logon as user anymore, you should check this.
The root user always has a bit of space on the root filesystem extra. Just logon and cleanup a bit.
About the Author
Wim Peeters is electronics engineer with an additional master in IT and over 30 years of experience, including time spent in support, development, consulting, training and database administration. Wim has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5. He has developed in C/C++, Java and C# on Windows and Linux. He writes knowledge base articles to solve IT problems and publishes them on the Lubby Knowledge Platform.