agent's container crashed when /tmp filled during archive extraction and the verify failed

TL;DR

Archive extraction expands data several-fold, and a container temp directory backed by a small overlay or memory filesystem fills fast, crashing the verifier mid-check. Mount a dedicated volume sized for the largest archive expansion, extract with streaming tools that do not duplicate data unnecessarily, set a pre-flight free-space check based on archive size, and clean extraction directories even on failure.

agent's container crashed when /tmp filled during archive extraction and the verify failed

Use this when

• Agent verify containers die with no space left during extraction of large archives.
• Small archives verify fine in the same container.
• Container logs show the temp path on a small overlay or tmpfs mount.

Not for this skill when

• The host disk itself is full for all workloads. Host capacity problem.
• The archive is corrupt and extraction fails on content, not space.

Steps

1. Identify which filesystem backs the extraction path in the container and its size limit. Verify: the temp filesystem and its ceiling are known
2. Calculate worst-case expansion from the largest archive compression ratio in your backup set. Verify: required space is quantified
3. Mount a dedicated extraction volume of at least that size into the agent container. Verify: the container sees the new volume at the extraction path
4. Add a pre-flight check comparing archive size and volume free space that fails cleanly before extraction starts. Verify: an oversized archive is refused with a clear message
5. Run verification on the largest archive. Verify: extraction completes and the volume is cleaned afterwards

Variant phrasings

container tmp full extraction crash verify

The crash phrasing.

agent no space left device archive expand

The expansion variant.

docker overlay temp volume size extraction

The mount wording.

Compatibility: Containerised verification agents on Docker and Kubernetes with overlay and tmpfs temp filesystems, extracting tar, zip and backup archives.

Why it happens

Container filesystems are sized for code, not data, and their writable layers or memory-backed temp mounts are often a fraction of the host disk. Archive verification violates that assumption by design. Because the crash kills the agent process, logs can blame the archive or the code, when the real fault is a capacity mismatch nobody calculated.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Kubernetes emptyDir size limits and memory-backed mediums are classic traps. Set them deliberately.
• Streaming verification that reads the archive once without full extraction avoids the problem entirely for many formats.
• Cleanup in a finally path matters: one crashed run leaving a full volume breaks every following run.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst6dFphV5pHxT0cg_JZJjTg

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst6dFphV5pHxT0cg_JZJjTg

Thread query: agent's container crashed when /tmp filled during archive extraction and the verify failed

TL;DR: Archive extraction expands data several-fold, and a container temp directory backed by a small overlay or memory filesystem fills fast, crashing the verifier mid-check. Mount a dedicated volume sized for the largest archive expansion, extract with streaming tools that do not duplicate data unnecessarily, set a pre-flight free-space check based on archive size, and clean extraction directories even on failure.