Plesk Update or Upgrade fails on a Debian-bsaed Linux server: The /boot partition has no free disk space: No space left on device

Symptoms

• Plesk Update or Upgrade fails on Debian (or Ubuntu) and produces an error that is similar to the following:

  CONFIG_TEXT: You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
  The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  <package_name> : PreDepends: <package_name> (= 1.42.13-1ubuntu1.1) but 1.42.13-1ubuntu1.2 is to be installed
  linux-image-generic : Depends: linux-image-4.4.0-171-generic but it is not going to be installed

• System package updater apt  fails with an error message that is similar to the following:

  # apt-get -f install
  Unpacking linux-image-3.16.0-55-generic (3.16.0-55.74~14.04.1) ...
  dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.16.0-55-generic_3.16.0-55.74~14.04.1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
  cannot copy extracted data for './boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-55-generic' to '/boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-55-generic.dpkg-new': failed to write (No space left on device)
  No apport report written because the error message indicates a disk full error

• The partition on which the /boot directory is mounted is full:

  # df -h | grep boot
  /dev/sda1 472M 443M 5.1M 99% /boot

• An error that is similar to the following appears in /var/log/plesk/install/autoinstaller3.log:

  # grep "No space left on device" /var/log/plesk/install/autoinstaller3.log
  cat: write error: No space left on device

• Multiple linux-image packages are shown when running the following command:

  # dpkg --list 'linux-image*'|awk '{ if ($1=="ii") print $2}'|grep -v `uname -r`

Cause

System packages cannot be updated due to a full /boot partition. Commonly, that partition may become full due to multiple old kernels persisting on the system.

Resolution

Resize the partition on which the /boot directory is mounted to increase free space or remove old kernels from the system.

Warning: Disk partitioning is not covered by Plesk Technical Support. If you are not familiar with Linux system administering and would like Plesk professionals to handle this task, please contact Plesk Professional Services team.