Lemmy server: screws the pooch when storage space runs out. It should gracefully handle that situation. (slrpnk.net)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by activistPnk@slrpnk.net to c/bugs@sopuli.xyz

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SDF went down over a month ago because they ran out of disk space. I’m calling this a software security bug for needless loss of availability. It should have only been a partial loss of availability.

What should have happened

When the server detects disk space getting low, it should not just crap out. It should switch into a read-only mode. In read-only mode, users can still login and access existing content. New posts, comments, and edits are disabled in this state. The node should signal to other fedi nodes that connect that it is in read-only mode.

Perhaps most importantly, users could then be informed /in band/ that the server still lives. We often see fedi nodes simply vanish out of the pure blue and users are at a spontaneous loss of data and relationships. Logging into a read-only server would settle some nerves.. keep ppls blood pressure down.

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[-] femtek 2 points 3 days ago

Depends on dependencies, I'm not sure of how lemmy is setup but even in read only mode you need to write logs and auth calls.

[-] activistPnk@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago

That’s not an obstacle. It’s a matter of where to draw the line for switching to read-only mode. A good design would obviously switch to read-only (w.r.t. user ops) when there is still plenty of space for logs.

[-] femtek 1 points 2 days ago

True, I'm a little bitter from coming into companies that do cloud just because and get themselves into issues like having one big partition that fills up and refuses to boot.

this post was submitted on 09 May 2026

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