Full /tmp/tmpXXXX directory on Tiny Core Relay

Usage and Config Platform
1

Some Tiny Core Relays are becoming unresponsive. Checking the OS shows that the /tmp/tmpXXXX directory (where XXXX appears to be is some randomly generated value) is full of diffsite and .fxf files. Some of these files are many months old - we would expect these to have been cleared out.

  1. What BigFix operations are utilizing this directory?
  2. Is the fact that the directory is not being cleared indicative of a bug?
  3. Should there be a cron job enabled to clear out this directory periodically?
2

@quest,

I can’t speak to if this is a bug with the TLC BESRelay ISO, for that I’d recommend opening a support request with BigFix L2. That said, it’s relatively straight forward to create a fixlet to monitor the size of /tmp/* and have automated remediation. Specifically leveraging the folder inspector.

Example of relevance to check size folder and its contents:

Q: sum of sizes of descendants of folder “/tmp”
A: 68680129230

I hope this helps.

Best,
@cmcannady

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3

That relevance is pretty useful, but it would also count the files that aren’t from BigFix. In the context of Tiny Core Linux, it has some special stuff going on with loopback devices and the /tmp directory, so a narrower search seems more appropriate.

number of ((files of (folders of folder "/tmp") whose (name of it starts with "tmp")) whose ((name of it ends with ".fxf") or (name of it starts with "__")))

This will count how many BigFix files are inside any /tmp/tmp* folders. Any Tiny Core Relay that reports the property with a number greater than 0 could have the problem.

Note: I think these folders are created by the Linux mkdtemp system call. I’m guessing that these folders were created using that, since the path & path name share a very similar pattern. Up until now, I thought any temporary files used BigFix were all handled inside of one of the BES subdirectoiries - guess I was wrong about that.

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4

I created a RFE/BigFix Idea concerning this: https://bigfix-ideas.hcltechsw.com/ideas/BFP-I-15

Unfortunately I am doubtful it will be accepted. Using a non-standard temporary directory would mean having to rely on manual cleanups instead of the OS simply clearing it out after a reboot, which could have it’s own set of problems. It may just be simpler and more reliable to reboot Tiny Core Relays on a periodic basis.