up vote 2 down vote favorite
2
share [g+] share [fb]

I was running out of space on an Ubuntu server, so I did this command to save space

sudo rm -rf /var/cache/apt/archives

However now when trying to do things with apt, I get the following errors:

E: Could not open lock file /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (2 No such file or directory)

E: Unable to lock the download directory

And things like 

Archive directory /var/cache/apt/archives/partial is missing.

Clearly I have removed some directory structure. Is there some way to do a apt-get rebuild-var-tree or similar?

link|improve this question
79% accept rate
3  
not a 'proper' answer so it'll need to be a comment but next time you could try apt-get autoclean (or possibly apt-get clean) – Journeyman Geek Feb 5 '10 at 13:25
feedback

1 Answer

up vote 9 down vote accepted

You need two things there: 

sudo mkdir -p /var/cache/apt/archives/partial
sudo touch /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo chmod 640 /var/cache/apt/archives/lock

Removing this directory manually is a bad idea generally. To clean archives cleanly, use:

sudo apt-get clean
link|improve this answer
thanks it works fine My lenny is coming back – benoit Jan 29 '11 at 4:05
Under debian, I think we should not use sudo. simply use: mkdir -p /var/cache/apt/archives/partial touch /var/cache/apt/archives/lock chmod 640 /var/cache/apt/archives/lock – user83606 Jun 5 '11 at 16:49
2  
You should always use sudo. – bahamat Jun 5 '11 at 17:49
feedback

protected by Community♦ Jun 5 '11 at 19:31

This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.