topic Re: disk space in Operating System - OpenVMS

disk space

adarsh_4 — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:31:21 GMT

i have a disk whose details r in the attachment. the problem that i have is that this disk is a system disk and it get filled up too quick.
i have purge,deleted and even used analyze/disk/repair, but still it would get filled up.

HOW CAN I KNOW WHAT PROGRAM OR PROCESS IS TAKING SO MUCH SPACE SO QUICKLY ?

Re: disk space

Steven Schweda — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:59:24 GMT

> Total blocks 17773524

A 9GB disk is not very large these days.

> HOW CAN I KNOW WHAT PROGRAM OR PROCESS [...]

Programs and processes don't occupy disk
space. Files occupy disk space. Find the
files, then try to figure out who's making
them.

Big files:

dire /date /owne /size /sele = size = min = 10000 sys$sysdevice:[000000...]

Many versions:

dire /date /owne /size sys$sysdevice:[000000...];-16

Adjust the parameters according to your
situation.

Re: disk space

John McL — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:28:04 GMT

Also do $ SHOW DEV/FILES/OUTPUT=F.LIS SYS$SYSDEVICE in order to find what files are open on the disk.

Ignore any with no process name and a PID of 00000000 and files of type .EXE. Then look at what's left and try to figure out what the files are for.

There's many possible causes (e.g. error log or ACCOUNTNG.DAT expanding) but I'm guessing that you'll probably find a .LOG file, very likely with a high version number, causing the problem.

Of course if you have the appropriate monitoring tools to identify the hot files on the disk your task would probably be much easier.

Re: disk space

adarsh_4 — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:57:44 GMT

mr john the size of the accounting.dat file is
Directory $1$DKA0:[SYS0.SYSMGR]

ACCOUNTNG.DAT;7 2559546

how can i reduce the size of this file.

Re: disk space

Steven Schweda — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:17:07 GMT

> ACCOUNTNG.DAT;7 2559546
> how can i reduce the size of this file.

HELP SET ACCOUNTING /NEW_FILE

Zip can compress these things pretty well, if
you'd like to save the old data. (You'd need
to re-expand it to do any processing, of
course.)

Re: disk space

Hein van den Heuvel — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:19:14 GMT

$SET ACCOUNT /NEW

You may want to do this every week or month.

You may want to use $SHOW ACCOUNT to see what its being recorded, and adjust with SET ACCOUNT as desired.

Please purge the account file only after taking a copy onto an other disk and/or some network storage.

Please google for DFU for a handy tool to find files quicker, and with more options, than DIRECTORY can.
MCR DFU SEARCH/FRAG=MINI=100
MCR DFU SEARCH/SIZE=MINI=1000000
MCR DFU SEARCH/VERS=MINI=20000
:

DFU is also handy to delete directory trees.

Hein.

Re: disk space

Robert Gezelter — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:22:47 GMT

Adarsh,

The accounting facility is controlled by the SET ACCOUNTING command. A new file is started by doing SET ACCOUNTING/NEW_FILE from a suitably privileged process. I strongly recommend reading the documentation on the command before doing anything along these lines.

After a SET ACCOUNTING/NEW_FILE, the old file can be reduced in size using the ZIP utility (please remember to use the "-V" switch to preserve the OpenVMS file attributes).

The SHOW ACCOUNTING command will indicate what information is currently being logged. Depending on what is being logged (and what the reason for logging it is) governs whether you can make changes.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Re: disk space

Jon Pinkley — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:25:02 GMT

Be aware that some programs may be creating sequential files without updating the EOF pointer by closing or flushing. In that case you can have a file with a large allocation but a small (even zero) used size reported.

So, when using directory or dfu to find files that have a large amount of disk space allocated, be sure to use the appropriate command to look at allocated size instead of used size.

$ dir/select=size:min:100000 disk$data:[000000...] /size=allocated

$ dfu search /size=min:1000000 disk$datau /sort /allocated

Re: disk space

John McL — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:42:00 GMT

How quickly is your system disk filling up? Is it hours, days or weeks?

If it is very fast - a day or two - then check that you don't have image level accounting switched on.

(If you don't know what it is then a quick look at the documentation for Accounting will explain better than I can here.)

It is also possible that the rate at which processes start and, more importantly, stop on your system is particularly excessive.

By the way, I recommend moving your old ACCOUNTNG.DAT files (compressed or not) off the system disk. I'd retain maybe a week or two's worth but no more. Any earlier can go to another disk or better yet, back them up to tape.

Re: disk space

The Brit — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:55:54 GMT

Following on from John.

When you "Purge" the disk, how many files are deleted, and how much space is released.

You should also check things like Page Files and Dump Files. Consider moving them off the system disk (if they are there).

Check also to see if you are saving "Recovery Data" from patch installs.

Also, if you have "non-OS" applications installed on your system disk, you should consider researching how to move them off.

Dave.

Re: disk space

adarsh_4 — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:54:38 GMT

thanks, i managed to solve the problem using your guy's suggestion. the accounting file and the log file for smtp service was too big.

after taking the recommended mesaures, the problem was solved. thank you all again.

Re: disk space

Willem Grooters — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:32:55 GMT

If the accounting file grows big in a short time, it's worth a look to see what is logged:

$ SHOW ACCOUNTING

Chances are you'll find "IMAGE" in that list. That one a log reco4rd for every image that is executed - and without noticing, you run a LOT of images....

Disable image accounting:
$ SET ACCOUNTING/DISABLE=IMAGE

Willem