---
title: "Clearing logs from PDM that do not rotate so update will progress"
slug: "clearing-logs-from-pdm-that-do-not-rotate-so-update-will-progress"
updated: 2025-02-12T17:07:43Z
published: 2025-02-12T17:07:43Z
canonical: "docs.telosalliance.com/clearing-logs-from-pdm-that-do-not-rotate-so-update-will-progress"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.telosalliance.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Clearing logs from PDM that do not rotate so update will progress

## Scope

On some PDMs (Running 2.5.X) there was an issue where the logs would not rotate properly filling the drive and preventing software updates from happening or PD-Alerts from completing. The system must be cleaned up manually then install 2.5.8 or higher (other versions before 2.5.8 will still have log rotation issues)

A root password is required. Please contact Telos for assistance with his procedure.

Enable SSH on the PDM by [http://192.168.2.96/secureshell.html](http://192.168.2.96/secureshell.html)

Then using putty or other, ssh to the PDM using the password.txt file (must have module number from PDM to know the password.

It’s a good idea to run `df -h` first to confirm the file system is full. Logs are kept in `/var` as shown below, size is 788M and 788M is used, 0 free

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:~ root$ df -h
Filesystem      Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          152M 74M  71M   52%  /
/dev/root       152M 74M  71M   52%  /
devtmpfs        500M 0    500M  0%   /dev
tmpfs           500M 280K 499M  1%   /run
cgroup_root      10M 0    10M   0%   /sys/fs/cgroup
shm             500M 0    500M  0%   /dev/shm
/dev/sda2       788M 788M 0     100% /var
tmpfs            20M 16K  20M   1%   /var/tmp
PDM-B980.133:~ root$
```

To confirm the log is the offending file, from the prompt;

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:log root$ cd /var/log
PDM-B980.133:var root$ ls -lh
```

System will show you (note the size of 257.log file) total 770M

```plaintext
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 766M Nov  3  2016 257.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root  50K Mar  5 14:55 dmesg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    0 Mar  5 16:27 lastlog
-rw------- 1 root root 2.7M Nov  3  2016 messages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.1K Oct 27  2016 ntpd.log
-rw------- 1 root root    0 Mar  5 16:27 tallylog
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root utmp  68K Mar  5 16:27 wtmp
```

Now we can delete the file (any files in this log directory may be safely removed)

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:log root$ rm 257.log
```

Another file that can get too large is /var/log/messages. So:

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:log root$ rm messages
```

Then another look at the directory structure shows /dev/sda2 is down to 22M. Note, there are other things kept in that dev/sda2 device. Most notable is the audio dump archive. If you are keeping those, your results may show more or less space available than what is shown in this example.

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:log root$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          152M   74M   71M  52% /
/dev/root       152M   74M   71M  52% /
devtmpfs        500M     0  500M   0% /dev
tmpfs           500M  280K  499M   1% /run
cgroup_root      10M     0   10M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
shm             500M     0  500M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2       788M   22M  727M   3% /var
tmpfs            20M   16K   20M   1% /var/tmp
```

If free space is still not reclaimed, it may be the dump audio archive taking up the rest of the space. It too can fill up and exaust storage space. Current firmware prevents this problem from appearing again in the future. Below is the way to delete all the WAV dump recordings (ask customer first sometimes they need to keep these and you might have to use winSCP to copy to the local PC to save them)

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:~ root$cd /var/opt/25-Seven/PDM/dumps/
PDM-B980.133:dumps root$rm *.wav
```

One last step is to remove a temp directory that gets left as part of the failed install. There is a status file that is left in that directory which will keep another install from happening. To clean this up, run the following;

```plaintext
PDM-B980.133:log root$rm -rf /var/lib/pkg_installer
```

From there, any further software updates should progress as normal.