Default labeling and space for rebuilding the kernel.

[Leon Meßner]

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 08:34:59AM -0400, Michael Powell wrote:
> Leon Meßner wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > if one uses the default labeling with current installer it is not
> > possible to rebuild the kernel (GENERIC). It fails on installing the
> > wlan.ko.
<snip>
> > /: write failed, filesystem is full
> > install: /boot/kernel/wlan.ko.symbols: No space left on device
> [snip]
> 
> There has been some discussion lately about possibly changing the defaults. 
> If you become faced with having to reinstall jot down your current partition 
> sizes and adjust manually making / larger.

On production machines i have some 2G. This was just an as fast as
possible installation.
 
> Since it is full, if you intend to try and recover it will entail deleting 
> something. This could get tricky, especially if the new 'kernel' space is 
> what filled up. This would presuppose that the kernel.old area was already 
> written out successfully. If the machine will not boot successfully with the 
> new kernel it is imperative that kernel.old still be healthy in order to 
> recover. However, if the new kernel does actually boot, with the result 
> being that some modules are missing you may be able to delete the kernel.old 
> in order to buy space. Messing around with this can potentially be 
> problematic, for obvious reasons. A strong 'YMMV' is indicated here.

I just went the easy way and moved the old kernel away from / . I
wouldn't have done so if this machine would be very critical though.

> If you can get past that, you may be able to mitigate the / being too small. 
> Place STRIP= -s into /etc/make.conf and WITHOUT_PROFILE= true into 
> /etc/src.conf. The con of this is that you lose some debugging ability. The 
> pro is new kernels will now fit. I have two servers set up this way at home, 
> and one uses 91MB while the other uses 93MB of space. The 91MB one only has 
> a / of 200MB total, and is nearly half empty. Allows for rebuilding and 
> installing a new kernel without running out of space.

Hm, never used this file. Looks like it was introduced in FBSD7
somewhere. Looks reasonable to split parameters for /usr/src into a
different file than /etc/make.conf

thanks,
Leon
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