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I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 and I would like to move /var to another partition using a python script. I found some directions that I thought were pretty good, but they call for switching to runlevel 1 (single-user mode) to prevent changes to /var while it is moved.

Is switching the runlevel necessary? Do I just call os.system('init 1') directly in my script? Can I put the system back in its normal state just by calling os.system('init 2') after the script is done?

When I'm connected over SSH I get booted out when I run init 1 myself, even if I'm connected as root. If I'm at the keyboard when I do init 1 I get the message: Will now switch to single-user mode, Give root password for maintenance (or type Control-D to continue):. My root password does not work at that point so I've tried Control-D and logging in as a user. runlevel then says the system is back at runlevel 2, but I can't reconnect by SSH until I reboot the system.

Any help understanding what is going on is appreciated!

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For moving /var as a whole, I'd recommend booting from a live CD (or USB) unless you're very confident in what you're doing (and if you were, you wouldn't be asking this question).

Separating /var isn't particularly useful anyway. If your / partition is almost full, look for a large directory or two that you can move away more easily, such as /var/www or /var/mail or /var/cache. Oh, and run apt-get clean to make sure you're not worrying over a large amount of downloaded and installed .deb packages.

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  • It's a web server on a virtual host, so I'm wary of overflowing log files and such. I don't think I would be able to do the live boot. Thanks for the tip on apt-get clean though. Commented Oct 25, 2011 at 0:06

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