Hi, I got warning message that "/var is almost full." Knowing that being full on a hard drive is never good, I want to resolve this.
>From command line: /var# du -h --max-depth=1 1.8G ./lib 4.0K ./local 2.7M ./tmp 16K ./lost+found 44K ./snap 6.3G ./cache 4.0K ./opt 56K ./spool 4.0K ./mail 8.2M ./backups 139M ./log 8.2G . So, my backups seems to be causing the main issue, followed closely by the cache. Here is what my backups look like: ls -l -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 153600 Apr 30 06:59 alternatives.tar.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9980 Apr 27 00:08 alternatives.tar.1.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9978 Apr 20 00:08 alternatives.tar.2.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9980 Mar 29 03:53 alternatives.tar.3.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9985 Mar 27 00:08 alternatives.tar.4.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9973 Mar 24 00:08 alternatives.tar.5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9908 Mar 15 11:50 alternatives.tar.6.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 175620 Apr 29 01:11 apt.extended_states.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18347 Apr 28 22:35 apt.extended_states.1.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18312 Apr 27 23:56 apt.extended_states.2.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18256 Feb 19 08:42 apt.extended_states.3.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18243 Jan 20 15:23 apt.extended_states.4.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18366 Jan 13 22:48 apt.extended_states.5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18351 Jan 12 07:40 apt.extended_states.6.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 678 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 271 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.1.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 271 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.2.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 271 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.3.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 271 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.4.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 271 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 271 Sep 6 2018 dpkg.diversions.6.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 239 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.1.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.2.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.3.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.4.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Nov 12 02:44 dpkg.statoverride.6.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3002519 Apr 30 06:55 dpkg.status.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 829132 Apr 28 22:36 dpkg.status.1.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 824705 Apr 27 23:56 dpkg.status.2.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 820759 Apr 26 23:23 dpkg.status.3.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 820758 Apr 19 23:06 dpkg.status.4.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 820758 Apr 19 23:06 dpkg.status.5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 820758 Apr 19 23:06 dpkg.status.6.gz -rw------- 1 root root 991 Apr 28 22:35 group.bak -rw------- 1 root shadow 833 Apr 28 22:35 gshadow.bak -rw------- 1 root root 2280 Apr 28 22:35 passwd.bak -rw------- 1 root shadow 1445 Apr 28 22:35 shadow.bak Here is my cache: du -h --max-depth=1 6.7M ./locate 159M ./postgresql 8.0K ./PackageKit 8.0K ./anthy 4.0K ./fonts 4.0K ./apparmor 6.5M ./debconf 30M ./cracklib 6.1G ./apt 328K ./cups 132K ./dictionaries-common 1.3M ./snapd 4.0K ./realmd 1.7M ./app-info 4.1M ./man 88K ./ldconfig 4.0K ./gdm 11M ./fontconfig 6.3G . So, from this, I can gather that my /var/cache/apt and /var/backups/(mostly dpkg.status.#.gz) are hogging all my space. I cleaned the cache with: sudo apt-get clean and, now my cache is pretty good now. I am still curious, what purpose (what is safe to remove) the /var/backups play. Unfortunately, the keyword "backups" brings up a lot of unrelated topics. Any tips would be appreciated.
