how to clean up or expand /boot partition ?

When running "Update Packages" just now, one update failed with the following error message:

"[('installing package kernel-xen-2.6.18-238.19.1.el5.i686 needs 335KB on the /boot filesystem', (9, '/boot', 343040L))] ... install failed!"

What to do?

TIA!

Status: 
Closed (fixed)

Comments

Howdy -- when installing a new kernel, RHEL/CentOS doesn't delete old kernels by default. My suspicion is that you have a system that's been working wonderfully for quite some time, but that over the years, a number of kernels have begun to collect in /boot.

My suggestion would be to delete some of the older ones, which would free up space.

There's a few different ways to do that... one of those would be to go into Webmin -> System -> Software Packages, and to search for "kernel-", and then click "Search for Package".

That would list all the packages on your system beginning with the name "kernel-".

Do you see a bunch of them listed there? You should see a list that looks a little like this (except probably a bunch longer):

kernel-2.6.9-34.EL
kernel-2.6.9-34.0.1.EL
kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL
kernel-smp-2.6.9-67.0.7.EL
kernel-smp-2.6.9-78.0.1.EL
kernel-2.6.9-78.0.1.EL
kernel-2.6.9-78.0.22.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.9.EL
...

If that's the case, you can go ahead and remove some of the older ones.

You'd want to make sure you aren't removing the kernel you're currently booted into. You can see which kernel version you're using now by clicking "System Information", and looking at the "Kernel and CPU" line.

Hmm, I saw a blank reply here in this request too. Were you trying to respond? If so, could you repeat what you were trying to say? Thanks!