Full /usr partition

[Fbarajas]

Hi! My server provider (ThePlanet) configured my Cpanel server with a 7.8 GB /usr partition, and now it's full.

The main problem is with the /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman directory, which is using almost 2 GB mainly because of the "archive/private" directory.

I tried to move the /3rdparty/ directory to another partition and symlink it, but Mailman won't work with symlinks.

What can I do?

Thanks!

[cPanelTristan]

If mailman is the main reason that /usr is large, you could try leaving the binaries in place and only move the space-consuming items such as the logs, messages, and so on.

I cannot guarantee this will work even though I did test it on my own system, so you would want to create a backup for /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman to /home or somewhere with space before you proceed:

cp -R  /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman /home/mailman.bak

After doing that, move only these directories in /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/ location:

archives
lists
logs
messages

mkdir /home/mailman
cd /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman
mv archives /home/mailman
mv lists /home/mailman
mv logs /home/mailman
mv messages /home/mailman

After that, symlink them back to /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman location:

ln -s /home/mailman/archives /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/archives
ln -s /home/mailman/lists /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/lists
ln -s /home/mailman/logs /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/logs
ln -s /home/mailman/messages /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/messages

Finally, chown for ownership to mailman:mailman:

chown -R mailman:mailman /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/{archives,lists,logs,messages}

If anything doesn't work properly, then you can revert to your backup copy that you ensured to make and try to figure out another option such as only moving the archives instead.

[Fbarajas]

Thanks Cpaneldanielle for your quick response. It's working now! Since the lists and the messages directories are quite small, I only moved the "archives" and the "logs" directory and now it's working correctly.

[cPanelTristan]

Great, I'm glad that worked out for you

[SageBrian]

I see part of my problem of a full /usr partition is excess source files.

383M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl
5.4M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/all_locales-1.4.18-20090526.tar.gz
5.5M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/awstats-6.9
1.1M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/awstats-6.95.tar.gz
5.0M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/cairo-1.6.4.tar.gz
1.4M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/fontconfig-2.6.0.tar.gz
1.8M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/freetype-2.3.7.tar.gz
2.2M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/gd-1.8.4
6.8M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/glib-2.20.0.tar.gz
18M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/horde-3.1.7p13.cpanel.tar.gz
29M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/horde-webmail-1.2.7.tar.gz
11M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/ImageMagick-6.4.8-2.tar.gz
1.9M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/interchange-4.8.6.tar.gz
1.8M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/interchange-4.9.3-200211090658.tar.gz
2.0M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/interchange-5.0.0.tar.gz
9.8M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/libmcrypt-2.5.8
1.3M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/libmcrypt-2.5.8.tar.gz
72M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/libxml2-2.6.23
4.4M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/libxml2-2.6.23.tar.gz
31M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.11
49M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.12
42M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.13
42M     /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.14
7.9M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.14.tgz
2.0M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/pango-1.20.5.tar.gz
4.2M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/phpMyAdmin-2.11.10.1-all-languages.tar.gz
4.6M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/phpMyAdmin-3.3.7-all-languages.tar.gz
2.1M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/roundcubemail-0.4.tar.gz
1.5M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/rrdtool-1.0.48.tar.gz
1.5M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/rrdtool-1.0.49.tar.gz
1.1M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/rrdtool-1.2.27.tar.gz
1.1M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/rrdtool-1.3.6.tar.gz
2.5M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/squirrelmail-decode-1.2
3.8M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/stunnel-4.15
2.6M    /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/webalizer-2.01-10

Would there be any reason for the multiple versions? like:
31M /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.11
49M /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.12
42M /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.13
42M /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/mailman-2.1.14

I see my /usr/local/cpanel/ is over 1.5G
and /usr/local/cpanel-rollback/ gives me a similar 1.8G

It would seem that removing the old versions would help, as well as compressing the cpanel-rollback.

Can I delete the old versions of these scripts?

[cPanelTristan]

cpanel-rollback doesn't function anymore as that ability to rollback to a prior cPanel configuration is no longer supported, so you could just remove cpanel-rollback entirely.

[SageBrian]

That is certainly helpful removing rollback, but if it no longer functions, why is it being created.
My folder was just created this afternoon after the latest update.

[SageBrian]

I also noticed that I have rollback turned off in tweaksettings:

Enable cPanel Software RollBack.

This feature turns on a build archiving and restoration facility, allowing the server administrator to “roll back” their cPanel installation to previous build. All files are stored on the server.

[cPanelTristan]

If you've saved Tweak Settings and it doesn't have that option checked but it is still saving that cpanel-rollback folder, please open a ticket. You could use either the link in my signature or WHM > Support Center > Contact cPanel

[SageBrian]

ticket added: 975641

[sneader]

Due to a full /usr partition, we recently moved the mailman archives directory to /home, then created a symlink from /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/archives -> /home/mailman/

This solved the /usr partition space issue HOWEVER now the nightly cpbackup is not backing up the 'archives' directory. It is only backing up the 'symlink'.

Thoughts?

- Scott

[cPanelTristan]

You could move the archives to a user's account then instead of its own directory in /home and it would then get backed up as part of that account. You could simply create a cPanel user for this purpose.

[sneader]

You could move the archives to a user's account then instead of its own directory in /home and it would then get backed up as part of that account. You could simply create a cPanel user for this purpose.

Hmmm... this seems like an odd solution, and with likely file/folder ownership problems to boot?

Many of us followed cPanel's previous guidelines for /usr and /var partition sizes , but now these are just too small. It would be nice to have a "cPanel approved" way of moving some things out of /usr and /var to solve things the "right" way, instead of creating one-off, unapproved solutions that may cause problems down the road.

For now, I have found some other things to remove out of /usr to get me by for now.

Thanks,

- Scott

[cPanelTristan]

I was simply trying to help in my initial suggestion on what to do to move the archives. If you want another option on what to do, your other option would be to cron making a backup copy of the files.

If you want an approved solution, then the issue here is we cannot approve any solution that involves moving and symlinking files and folders anyway. The approved solution is to resize /var and /usr or migrate to a machine with larger /var and /usr (or no /var and /usr that are separate partitions).

Of note, I stated in my initial suggestion that it might not result in the ideal situation ("I cannot guarantee this will work") to move these files and folders.

[sneader]

I really did appreciate your trying to help, and I'm sorry that I didn't so my appreciation very well.

I was hoping for a solution that would not cause problems or be a one-off situation that could bite me later on. i.e. a symlink to some files that perhaps don't need to be backed up or some other ideas.

If migrating to new hardware is the only cPanel suggested/approved solution, then that is good to know.

Was just thinking that since we followed the original /usr & /var partition suggestions, we are likely not the only ones struggling with this problem, thus a tried-and-true solution may be out there.

- Scott