Can't boot TemplateVM, possible no space left on storage

User Support General
1

Can’t boot TemplateVM, is it too little space in one of the partitions? If so, private or root?

This is a clone from the debian-minimal template.

I had to expand the root partition a lot to upgrade a software in this template and then shrinked back the root partition with lvresize.

The AppVMs from this template use a lot of private storage, not sure if it’s also used in the TemplateVM during updating.

[2025-06-26 18:22:26] mount: mounting /dev/mapper/dmroot on /sysroot failed: Invalid argument
[2025-06-26 18:22:26] Waiting for /dev/xvdd device...
[2025-06-26 18:22:26] [    0.928073] EXT4-fs (xvdd): mounting ext3 file system using the ext4 subsystem
[2025-06-26 18:22:26] [    0.929898] EXT4-fs (xvdd): mounted filesystem 5f712be2-86d6-4987-9c33-f47d8aa12c42 ro with ordered data mode. Quota mode: none.
[2025-06-26 18:22:26] mount: mounting none on /sysroot/lib/modules failed: No such file or directory
[2025-06-26 18:22:26] [    0.937482] EXT4-fs (xvdd): unmounting filesystem 5f712be2-86d6-4987-9c33-f47d8aa12c42.
[2025-06-26 18:22:26] mount: can't read '/proc/mounts': No such file or directory

Full log: qubes log - Pastebin.com

2

Your message is a little bit old, but it looks like the root cannot be mounted. Normally this is not only a problem of free space, I think.

When you did this:

…did you take a lot of care to shrink the filesystem also, using --resizefs, or by a separate command?
If not, then there could be damage to the root FS of your template.

In any case, maybe you can use Qubes volume revert to go back to the old version, but…

Maybe it is a good idea to do backup of all your VMs first.

Remember, it is possible to clone your template, so you don’t lose it if there is a problem. If the extra size was necessary for compiling (for example), then maybe it is possible to do that in a clone, and only qvm-copy the result to the original template.

3

qvm-volume seems to only keep the last two snapshots by default, and this includes the failed attempts to start the VM, hence both revisions are in the same state.

I did not resize the filesystem internally before using the lvresize from dom0.

The tool I was using for some reason used both the root and the private filesystem temporarily to store several files, I will do it again with that clone trick but I will also attempt to start over and resize it properly this time.

4

It’s not safe to use lvresize without resizing the filesystem first.