topic Re: File system cleanup in Operating System - HP-UX

File system cleanup

Victor_5 — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 13:52:18 GMT

It is not my first time to meet this problem, any idea?

For example, /var hit 95%, I found a huge log file there, then

mv /var/logfile /var/logfile.bk
touch /var/logfile
compress /var/logfile.bk

After that, use du -sk /var to double check, I found the space has been free up, however, when I use bdf, it still say 95%?

Re: File system cleanup

Pete Randall — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 13:58:43 GMT

Hi Victor,

Check this thread - I think the situation Michael Tully describes might be yours as well:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x4965c1c4ceddd61190050090279cd0f9,00.html

Pete

Re: File system cleanup

Ashwani Kashyap — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:01:37 GMT

The process writing in the logfile is still running . U need to stop that process before u can see the required space in bdf . use lsof to find out which process is using that file .

Re: File system cleanup

Dietmar Konermann — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:03:12 GMT

After mv'ing the file it may be still opened by some process... which makes it impossible for the kernel to free up space.

This should work:

# compress -c /var/logfile > /var/logfile.bk.Z
# > /var/logfile

The "> /var/logfile" truncates the file... and allows the kernel to free the space.

Regards...
Dietmar.

Re: File system cleanup

Helen French — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:04:01 GMT

The bdf and du commands works differently. du will reflect the FS changed very quickly, but bdf doesn't. Check and make sure that no processes are kept locking the file which you moved (lsof, fuser). Try doing a 'lvsync' and check again. I would wait for sometime to get the correct output from 'bdf'. You might want to take a look at the system patch level too.

Re: File system cleanup

Victor_5 — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:16:29 GMT

I can not access this link, where can I get the lsof?

http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Sysadmin/lsof-4.61/

Re: File system cleanup

S.K. Chan — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:20:44 GMT

Try this .. (version 4.64)
http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Sysadmin/lsof-4.64/

Re: File system cleanup

Dietmar Konermann — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:39:00 GMT

Just to make it clear... there is NO need to stop the process for your cleanup. Just truncate the file, that's it.