安装Linux内核会生成“ gzip：stdout：设备上没有剩余空间”错误

Question

My current Ubuntu is 16.04.1 LTS , and I use it to build the newest linux 4.7 kernel. All the build process is smooth, except when installing, it prompts the following error:

# make modules_install install
......
  DEPMOD  4.7.0
sh ./arch/x86/boot/install.sh 4.7.0 arch/x86/boot/bzImage \
        System.map "/boot"
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 4.7.0 /boot/vmlinuz-4.7.0
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 4.7.0 /boot/vmlinuz-4.7.0
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.7.0
W: mdadm: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf defines no arrays.

gzip: stdout: No space left on device
E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 gzip 1
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-4.7.0 with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
arch/x86/boot/Makefile:191: recipe for target 'install' failed
make[2]: *** [install] Error 1
arch/x86/Makefile:261: recipe for target 'install' failed
make[1]: *** [install] Error 2
Makefile:523: recipe for target '__build_one_by_one' failed
make: *** [__build_one_by_one] Error 2

I dobut there is no space on my host, so I use " df -h " command to check:

# df -h
Filesystem                   Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev                         1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs                        390M   11M  379M   3% /run
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root  454G   25G  407G   6% /
tmpfs                        2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                        5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                        2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda2                    473M  179M  270M  40% /boot
/dev/sda1                    511M  3.5M  508M   1% /boot/efi
tmpfs                        100K     0  100K   0% /run/lxcfs/controllers
tmpfs                        390M     0  390M   0% /run/user/0

It seems only /dev directory is full, but I don't know whether it is the root cause. Could anyone give some clues on this issue?

Answer 1

As yo can see in your df's execution there's only a few megs left in your /boot partition.

The first thing you can do is check if there are older kernels that you're not using anymore:

# uname -r
4.6.0-1-amd64
# dpkg -l linux-image*
Deseado=desconocido(U)/Instalar/eliminaR/Purgar/retener(H)
| Estado=No/Inst/ficheros-Conf/desempaqUetado/medio-conF/medio-inst(H)/espera-disparo(W)/pendienTe-disparo
|/ Err?=(ninguno)/requiere-Reinst (Estado,Err: mayúsc.=malo)
||/ Nombre                                    Versión                   Arquitectura              Descripción
+++-=========================================-=========================-=========================-=======================================================================================
un  linux-image                               <ninguna>                 <ninguna>                 (no hay ninguna descripción disponible)
ii  linux-image-4.5.0-2-amd64                 4.5.5-1                   amd64                     Linux 4.5 for 64-bit PCs
ii  linux-image-4.6.0-1-amd64                 4.6.4-1                   amd64                     Linux 4.6 for 64-bit PCs
ii  linux-image-amd64                         4.6+74                    amd64                     Linux for 64-bit PCs (meta-package)

As you can see in my example, i have the current kernel and the previous one installed. This is my usual behaviour but in ubuntu, in certain configurations, maybe you have more than two kernels installed.

You can safely remove any other kernel installed beside those two as you have tested the current kernel and the one before that.

If this is not the case you can try to expand your /boot partition, this is complicated in most cases, i see that you have lvm configured in your / partition. You can try to boot up your machine with a knoppix and resize your partitions to give some extra space to your /boot partition. But you have to avoid add this space with lvm because i think that your installation don't have lvm supported in the boot proccess.

The best option should be try to resize the whole lvm partition and give that extra space to /boot .