Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:49:14 -0400 From: "Tamouh H." <hakmi@rogers.com> To: "'Jerry McAllister'" <jerrymc@msu.edu>, "'Chuck Swiger'" <cswiger@mac.com> Cc: 'Marcelo Maraboli' <marcelo.maraboli@usm.cl>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: pwd.db too big for / partition Message-ID: <20070319204915.A107E13C4BD@mx1.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20070319194549.GA5491@gizmo.acns.msu.edu>
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>=20 > On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 10:39:18AM -0700, Chuck Swiger wrote: >=20 > > On Mar 19, 2007, at 7:54 AM, Marcelo Maraboli wrote: > > >my / partition has only 73.196 Mbytes available and since I have=20 > > >22.000 users, I now cannot change anyone?s password.. > > > > > >root@server:~$ passwd marcelo.maraboli Changing local password for=20 > > >marcelo.maraboli New Password: > > >Retype New Password: > > > > > >/: write failed, filesystem is full > > >pwd_mkdb: write old: No space left on device > > >passwd: pam_chauthtok(): error in service module > > > > > >How can I rezise the "/" partition or move the spwb.db and pwd.db=20 > > >files to another partition ?? (each of them is 44 Mbytes) > >=20 > > You certainly don't want to move the password files out of /etc--=20 > > you'll render the machine unbootable as it needs to find=20 > them on the=20 > > root partition. The only approach I see which is likely to be=20 > > workable would be to backup the system, repartition the=20 > disks with a=20 > > larger root partition, and restore from backups. >=20 > I agree. >=20 > > However, in theory, if you had free disk space, you could=20 > use growfs=20 > > to expand the root partition without repartitioning, but I=20 > am dubious=20 > > about using that command against /. >=20 > I believe, with growfs, the space that you add must be contiguous > with the partition it is joining. So, unless there is a partition > that could be shrunk next to root, (maybe swap is there) it=20 > wouldn't work. > If there is room - maybe by mucking with swap if it is the=20 > next partition, then it might be do-able. But, I would also=20 > be leary of doing it with /. >=20 > ////jerry >=20 > >=20 > > -- > > -Chuck Well, I had a VM laying around so thought to fire it up and do some = testing. I know this is absurd abit but I wanted to see the effect of = doing symlinks with pwd.db files. - I was able to copy /etc/pwd.db /etc/spwd.db to /var/etc/ =20 - Then I deleted /etc/pwd.db and /etc/spwd.db - created ln -s /var/etc/pwd.db /etc/pwd.db and ln -s /var/etc/spwd.db = /etc/spwd.db - changed the root password, worked! - Even rebooted the system and was able to successfully able to login - All worked fine except, I noticed after running passwd to reset a user = password, the system copied pwd.db and spwd.db over the symlinks so I = always was ending up with /etc/pwd.db and /etc/spwd.db files I guess this method will solve your space problem if there is a way to = make the system follow the symlink instead of overwriting it everytime a = password is changed/created. Tamouh
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