/var usage

[sgtmura]

Hi,
I'm trying to find out what is filling up /var on my server.
du and df commands gives me contrasting information... and I cannot find what it is that is filling up the filesystem...

# du -sk /var
148 /var
# df -k /var
Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c0d0s5 498271 445570 2874 100% /var

Thanks in advance for your help,
Rm

[Jov]

Hi,

I use a iterative process to track which file/directory are using up the space.

# du -sk /var/* | sort -rn | more

This will list the directory/file with the highest usage.


jov

[RAC_1]

following will list the dirs as per their space uasge in acesnding order.

du -kx /var | sort -n

Then check individual dirs to know more.

[sgtmura]

Thanks Jov,

This is what I get from the command that you've given me. The sum is far less than what the df command is giving me... where is the rest of the space being used??

# du -sk /var/* | sort -rn | more
44 /var/spool
36 /var/dmi
22 /var/locale
14 /var/adm
10 /var/uucp
3 /var/preserve
2 /var/smtp-poplock
2 /var/lp
2 /var/log
2 /var/crash
1 /var/tmp
1 /var/ntp
1 /var/nis
1 /var/mail
1 /var/cron

[RAC_1]

Is /var still at 100%?? du did not show any of dirs with problem.

did you delete any file from var?? Looks like there was a file that was deleted, when process was still accessing it. In that case space will not be released till that process is stopped.

[sgtmura]

Yes it's still at 100%. Is there a way to pin-point the process that is hanging on to the file?

[RAC_1]

Rm,
You missed something. I asked you you to
do du -kx /var|sort -nr

and not
du -sk

do du -kx /var | sort -rn and check dir that are occupying most of the space.

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

You can run fuser or better still lsof to identify processes that are using files in /var. You have unlinked these files but until the files actually close or the process terminates, the space is not returned to the filesystem. Man 2 unlink for details.

[sgtmura]

Clay,
Found the culprit and restarted it. Which did the trick! Thank you very much!
And thanks to everyone else for giving me advise.
Regards,
Rm