WARNING: No space for indexes. Check filesystem space (moving lists.dir)

SUMMARY

How to determine if lists.dir has filled the /usr/bp partition and steps to resolve.

ISSUE

A backup fails or fails to queue with the following warning in the job details: “WARNING: No space for indexes. Check filesystem space.”

RESOLUTION

Warning: Serious problems may occur if these commands are executed incorrectly. These problems may require redeployment of the appliance, result in a loss of data, and/or cause system downtime. Unitrends cannot guarantee these problems can be solved and customers should proceed at their own risk.

The following process will verify the /usr/bp partition is full, move the lists.dir directory to a different partition with more free space (such as /backups), and create a symbolic link to that partition.

Validate the Free Space on Each Partition

1. Open the UI of the appliance.
2. Select "Configure" on the left.
3. Select the "Edit" button at the top.
4. On the "Advanced" tab, select "Support Toolbox" at the bottom.
5. Select "Disk Free Space".  The following dialog will be displayed:
   
6. In this example, our /usr/bp partition is 100% utilized and our /backups partition has a significant amount of space free.

Move lists.dir To a New Partition

1. Connect to the appliance via SSH.
2. Stop the database and tasker:

   /etc/init.d/bp_rcscript stop

3. Move the lists.dir directory to a partition with more free space, such as /backups:

   mv /usr/bp/lists.dir /backups/lists.dir

4. Create a symbolic link:

   ln -s /backups/lists.dir /usr/bp/lists.dir

5. Restart the database and tasker:

   /etc/init.d/bp_rcscript start

CAUSE

This is a rare occurrence, but is most likely to happen when backing up large servers. Part of the Unitrends backup operation will collect metadata from the files from your server. This data is stored in ‘/usr/bp/lists.dir’ on the Unitrends system in a partition which can potentially fill up.