Why Root partition is getting full during ISO copy to a different disk or storage

[Amerdz]

In an attempt to move away from Vmware once and forever, I installed Proxmox 5.3 a couple days back on a 32gb USB in my home setup with all the default options during install. I moved my pfsense firewall (fresh install as a VM) to this setup and everything worked like a charm. However, I'm hitting a very strange and annoying issue which is forcing me to go back to ESXi which I don't want at all.

I have a Toshiba 500gb drive (NTFS formatted) plugged in via USB and permanently mounted (fstab) at /mnt/Tosh500, and then added as a 'Directory' storage with ISO and Disk Image contents. This is also the location of my pfsense disk image in qcow2 format.

For some unknown reason, whenever I try to copy ISO files to this 500gb storage, the copy starts fine but somewhere in the middle it slows down to a crawl where speed is only few KBs. At the same time right when I start the ISO copy, I noticed the root partition which is 6.4gb starts filling up and eventually goes 100%, putting everything at halt and I/O load going crazy. After few minutes the root partition gets back to around 50-60%, file copy resumes with very slow speed and than root partition starts filling up again. This keeps happening until the ISO file is fully copied. It takes about an hour and half to copy a 3gb ISO file like this. Sometimes the copy fails too.

My hardware is HP mini box with Intel 6th gen 8-core processor and 16gb memory. No fancy ZFS stuff or anything yet.

Things I have tried so far:
- Re-mounted the disk with a host reboot - same result
- Moved pfsense image to somewhere else and formatted 500gb disk with ext4 - same result
- Used a 256gb Sandisk drive - same results
- Tried with a ZFS pool - same result

Anyone has any idea what is going on here?.

Thanks in advance.

 

[killmasta93]

have you checked the logs on /var/log/system ? my guess something has to do with the cables did you try to put the iso in /var/lib/vz/iso

 

[dcsapak]

when you upload an iso via the webinterface, it will get saved in /var/tmp temporarily and then moved to the target storage

 

[Amerdz]

when you upload an iso via the webinterface, it will get saved in /var/tmp temporarily and then moved to the target storage

What about the backups and other stuff?. Do they all first go to /tmp and than further down to the actual target?. And what if the file is too big to be able to fit in /tmp?. Wondering if this is the normal way or a workaround is available?. Any suggestion for me to avoid this?.

My apology if I ask an entry level question - this is my very first Proxmox install.

 

[dcsapak]

regarding backups:

vm backups go directly to the backup file (maybe through a pipe in case of compression)
container backups go also first to /var/tmp and then to the target, but you can configure this via /etc/vzdump.conf

 

[Amerdz]

have you checked the logs on /var/log/system ? my guess something has to do with the cables did you try to put the iso in /var/lib/vz/iso

Couldn't find anything relevant in /var/log/system, just the usual stuff.
Could you please explain more about putting iso in /var/lib/vz/iso?.

 

[Amerdz]

regarding backups:

vm backups go directly to the backup file (maybe through a pipe in case of compression)
container backups go also first to /var/tmp and then to the target, but you can configure this via /etc/vzdump.conf

Thanks. I'll read the documentation and give it a shot.
So do I have to live with this temporary halt during every file copy with I/O going crazy or tweaking /etc/vzdump.conf will fix this?.

 

[Amerdz]

Couldn't find anything relevant in /var/log/system, just the usual stuff.
Could you please explain more about putting iso in /var/lib/vz/iso?.

Nevermind, I read the documentation about paths and where exactly the stuff goes.
But my actual problem still stays. Wondering if mounting external drive to a different location, something like /media/ will make any difference?. Having a complete halt every time a file copy is happening is very annoying.

 

[killmasta93]

Nevermind, I read the documentation about paths and where exactly the stuff goes.
But my actual problem still stays. Wondering if mounting external drive to a different location, something like /media/ will make any difference?. Having a complete halt every time a file copy is happening is very annoying.

try to create folder in /media/usb

then mount the USB drive in that folder

I made a mistake thought you were trying to upload the iso to the root folder what you want to upload the iso to the usb drive?

 

[Amerdz]

try to create folder in /media/usb

then mount the USB drive in that folder

I made a mistake thought you were trying to upload the iso to the root folder what you want to upload the iso to the usb drive?

So, mounting USB based drives to /mnt is different than mounting to /media?. My understanding is I can mount anywhere?. Please correct me, my linux skills are not very good.

This 500gb HDD connected via USB will be my storage for ISOs and backups.

 

[sb-jw]

Why you not copy the iso files directly to the directory / drive?
Use WinSCP if you have windows or SCP if you have Linux or download the file directly with wget.

 

[killmasta93]

So, mounting USB based drives to /mnt is different than mounting to /media?. My understanding is I can mount anywhere?. Please correct me, my linux skills are not very good.

This 500gb HDD connected via USB will be my storage for ISOs and backups.

yes correct normally create folder

mkdir /media/usb

then mount it to find out what drive letter run this lsblk
lets say its sdk1

mount /dev/sdk1 /media/usb

then on the webgui add the storage device to point to /media/usb

 

[Amerdz]

yes correct normally create folder

mkdir /media/usb

then mount it to find out what drive letter run this lsblk
lets say its sdk1

mount /dev/sdk1 /media/usb

then on the webgui add the storage device to point to /media/usb

Mounting to /media didn't help. I ended up uploading through winscp.
Will try tweaking /var/vzdump.conf. But still not comfortable with the way GUI based ISO upload is designed to first go to /var/tmp and than to the actual destination.
Thanks for all the help.