"Running out of disk space" message since upgrade to RouterOS 6.48.1

RouterOS General
1

Hello,

I bought a CRS326-24G-2S+ one month ago and upgraded it from 6.46.8 to 6.48.1 yesterday (through Web interface).
Since then I get he following message in the router’s logs every 10 minutes.

Running out of disk space, when minimum 500kB is reached UM will be stopped!

I checked and indeed I only have 700KB left (out of 16MB):

/system resource print        
	uptime: 20h37m2s
	version: 6.48.1 (stable)
 	build-time: Feb/03/2021 10:54:22
	factory-software: 6.44.6
	free-memory: 476.9MiB
	total-memory: 512.0MiB
	cpu: ARMv7
	cpu-count: 1
	cpu-frequency: 800MHz
	cpu-load: 6%
	free-hdd-space: 700.0KiB
	total-hdd-space: 16.0MiB
	write-sect-since-reboot: 5318
	write-sect-total: 44567
	bad-blocks: 0%
	architecture-name: arm
	board-name: CRS326-24G-2S+
	platform: MikroTik

I’m surprised because I only log to memory and have almost nothing on the router’s flash:

/file print         
 # NAME						TYPE		SIZE	CREATION-TIME        
 0 mikrotik_router_backup_20210302.rsc		script		527	mar/02/2021 17:35:30 
 1 flash					disk			mar/02/2021 17:28:09 
 2 flash/auto-before-reset.backup		backup		71.3KiB	jan/01/1970 01:00:31 
 3 flash/skins					directory		jan/01/1970 01:00:26 
 4 flash/user-manager				directory		mar/02/2021 01:49:46 
 5 flash/user-manager/logsqldb			file		6.0KiB	jan/01/2002 02:00:02 
 6 flash/pub					directory		jan/02/1970 06:22:01 
 7 flash/user-manager/sqldb			file		80.0KiB	jan/01/2002 02:00:27

Here are the packages I have installed (I can’t remove the packages that are bundled.)

/system package print detail  
Flags: X - disabled 
 0   name="user-manager" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" 
 1   name="multicast" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" 
 2   name="routeros-arm" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" 
 3   name="system" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
 4 X name="ipv6" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
 5 X name="wireless" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
 6 X name="hotspot" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
 7   name="mpls" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
 8   name="routing" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
 9   name="ppp" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
10   name="dhcp" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
11   name="security" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
12   name="advanced-tools" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled="" bundle=routeros-arm 
13   name="ntp" version="6.48.1" build-time=feb/03/2021 10:54:22 scheduled=""

Last but not least, I have a single partition on the router (I wish I could have a backup partition, but with 700KB left…) so the disk space is not on another partition

My questions are the following:

  • Why am I so short on disk space ?
  • Is this a known issue ?
  • What can I do to free some space ?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Michel

2

Do you actually use the User Manager (UM) or it has become active after the upgrade to 6.48.1?

Can you remember what was the disk space occupation before the upgrade?

I could imagine the warning is the only actual change between the old and new version, i.e. that the disk occupation was about the same all the time, but now the warning has been added.

You can replace the bundle by individual packages if you downgrade the router, disable the unused packages, upload the new versions of the necessary packages extracted from the “extra packages” .zip file, and reboot the router.

3

Hello and thank you for your reply.

The user manager was installed prior to upgrading the device. I will remove it, it should save around 1MB.
I don’t remember the disk space prior to the upgrade, but what I remember is that some logs were written to disk with no space issues.
Note that I removed all logs files before starting the update.
I’ll try to replace the bundles with individual ones. Thanks for the suggestion.

Side questions:

  • the system npk alone is > 8 Mo (compressed), not counting all other packages, is it possible to have two partitions on the CRS326-24G-2S+ to ease backups / rollbacks ?
  • is it possible to increase the disk space on the CRS326-24G-2S+ by any means ?

Kind regards,

4

If you don’t need it, removing it will save more space, as its database can be removed from the disk too, it takes some 80 MB there.


With 16 MB flash disk space and the size of today’s RouterOS, partitioning is impossible.


None I would know of. You’d have to dive into the CPU datasheets (only available under NDA) to find out whether it can address more than 16 MB of flash memory, and eventually replace the flash chip with a bigger one, copying the bootloader from the old one.

I think letting the switch be a switch and adding an external router with more disk space (like RB450Gx4) is a cheaper variant.

5

Again, thank you for your help.

I installed 6.47.9, disabled all non-needed packages and uploaded manually only the packages I need before rebooting the device.
Now I have 5MB space left and no more warnings.

Concerning the replacement of the flsh IC, I won’t follow this path :slight_smile: