'Root is full' problem

[Petter Adsen]

On Sun, 5 Jul 2015 17:05:56 +0100
R Kimber <richardkimber at btinternet.com> wrote:

> I'm getting 'root is full' messages after installing a new USB drive,
> but I can't work out how to sort it out.
> 
> The background is:-
> 
> I had a failing USB drive (there are two).
> I unmounted both USB drives.
> I commented out both drives in /etc/fstab.
> I unplugged the failing drive.
> I rebooted.
> 
> I used gparted to format the new drive.
> 
> It turned out that the good USB drive was mounted after the reboot,
> though not of course the new drive, but not where it had been
> specified in fstab. (How does that happen? I thought fstab controlled
> drive mounting). And I get the 'root is full' message.

I have a line like this in /etc/fstab:

LABEL=USB-Backup	/backup ext4 defaults,user,nofail 0 0

This mounts the USB drive with the label "USB-Backup" on /backup if is
present on boot, or if it subsequently gets connected. You can of
course use the UUID instead if the filesystem does not have a label -
I just prefer labels as they are easier to remember and differentiate
between. Just don't use /dev/sd*, as those are fragile.

The "nofail" is there so that systemd won't complain and hang on boot
if the drive is not present. You can use "noauto" instead, but then it
won't be mounted automatically at all, you will need to do it manually.

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
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