[SOLVED] my var directory on debian 13.1 has only 500 MiB free space and I cannot update flatpak anymore. How do I solve this?

[SOLVED] too many unsuccessful flatpak updates lingered in this directory. It sorted itself out after rebooting the system.

var capacity 11.1 GiB, var usage 10.6 GiB

27 points · 21 comments · view on lemmy.world

21 Comments

mactan@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 339d (1 reply)

why would var have such a restraint? reminds me of overly complex tutorials tricking people into elaborate partitioning schemes

mlfh@lemmy.sdf.org · 5 pts · 339d

/var is often where processes dump a lot of data (logs, databases, etc), and subpartitioning of /var sets a cap so that when too much data is dumped there, the application crashes instead of the whole system. /var/log is often recommended to be subpartitioned separately as well, so that logging can still go on if the application data fills up and crashes.

These kinds of overruns can be intentional DOS attacks, also, so the subpartitioning is often a security recommendation. NIST 800-171 requires separate partitions for /var, /var/log, /var/log/audit, and /var/tmp

pollopolis@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 340d (1 reply)

Uninstall all the flatpak packages that are installed as system wide packages and install them as user packages, that way flatpak will use your /home partition. I had the same problem.

arsus5478@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 337d

Uninstall all the flatpak packages that are installed as system wide packages and install them as user packages

would you eli5 how to do this?

just_another_person@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 340d (2 replies)

du -hsc /var

Check the sheets to see which directories are taking up your space.

arsus5478@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 337d (1 reply)

du -hsc /var

sudo du -hsc /var returns: 10G /var, 10G total

du -hsc /var returns: du: cannot read directory '/var/lost+found': Permission denied, du: cannot read directory '/var/spool/cron/crontabs': Permission denied...

25 more lines like this

just_another_person@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 337d

Put a sudo in front of that then

istdaslol@feddit.org · 4 pts · 340d

Usually var gets full of old log files. So maybe delete some of those. Apt-cache is also a suspect

JASN_DE@feddit.org · 3 pts · 340d

Well, what's using your /var?

chellomere@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 340d (2 replies)

You can use baobab or ncdu to try to figure out what's filling it up.

arsus5478@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 337d (1 reply)

I installed baobab 48.0.2 with sudo apt.

should I install ncdu 2.9.1 with uniget install ncdu? the apt version is older than that

chellomere@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 337d

You do you, but I think it's rarely worth it having the absolutely newest version of something. The Debian version of a package may be older, but often has the advantage of being well-tested. And the Debian version of ncdu is all I've ever used and it has worked well.

uniget, huh? That's not a package manager I've ever heard of before.

mlfh@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 339d

apt-get clean will clear the apt cache and should give you enough temporary storage headroom on /var to do things, but if you're bumping up on this limit often, you'll need to reconfigure your storage.

db2@lemmy.world · -19 pts · 340d (7 replies)

dd if=/dev/zero of=/var

But really, remove what you don't use and/or stop using flatpak.

data1701d@startrek.website · 18 pts · 340d (4 replies)

FYI Don’t use this command. I think it was intended as a joke, but I just want to clarify.

db2@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 340d (3 replies)

That's why I didn't include any privilege escalation, even if someone ran it as is it would fail. But a warning is also appropriate, thanks.

bus_factor@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 339d (2 replies)

That doesn't make it better.

The first thing a novice user learns is to slap sudo in the front if they don't have access to do something.

db2@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 339d (1 reply)

Nobody puts var on its own partition anymore, it would sill fail.

Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 339d

He either has var on a dedicated partition or has a 12 gb drive in 2025

gravitywell@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 339d (1 reply)

Wouldn't that just make a file full of zeros?

I think the proper (joke) command here would be

rm -rf /var/*

db2@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 339d

It would probably fail unless var was a block device actually. It wouldn't turn a directory in to a file.