/var/spool/mqueue

[Dennis Handly]

># find /var/spool/mqueue -type f -exec rm -f +)
>I found: find: -exec not terminated with ";"
>Can you please tell me what does it mean?

Remove the extra ")" at the end of the line. (Or was that ")" just your quoting?)
The "+" acts like a ";" except it makes it work much faster.
If your find doesn't accept that "+", you must be on 10.20?

You could try: exec rm -f {} +

[Prakash1178]

Dennis,

That ")" was not extracharacter... it was just completion of bracket.

My system is HP UX R 11i

I tried

-exec rm -f{}+

but is giving
find: -exec required an argument.
rm:illegal option --{
rm:illegal option --}
rm:illegal option --+

Regards,


Prakash

[Prakash1178]

Dennis,

That ")" was not extracharacter... it was just completion of bracket.

My system is HP UX R 11i

I tried

-exec; rm -f{}+

but is giving
find: -exec required an argument.
rm:illegal option --{
rm:illegal option --}
rm:illegal option --+

Can I try
-exec; rm -f

Regards,


Prakash

[Dennis Handly]

>-exec rm -f{}+
find: -exec required an argument.
rm:illegal option --{
rm:illegal option --}
rm:illegal option --+

You need to cut&paste, not retype, you are missing spaces:
-exec rm -f {} +

[Rasheed Tamton]

Hi Prakash,

In your case using find is not required at all. All the files in /var/spool/mqueue are normal files.

If you do not want to remove the dir, you can use:

cd /var/spool/mqueue
rm *


regards.

[Yogeeraj_1]

Dennis:
>>approx 5 Lac files.
>How many is that again??

I think Prakash is refering to 500,000 files.


Prakash:
Always be prudent when using the rm commands, if you miss something or have something extra, it can have dramatic consequences. If you unsure of the syntax, do a "man " on your system.

e.g. man find


kind regards
yogeeraj

[Prakash1178]

Hi Dennis
~~~~~~~~~
You were right. I was missing spaces. Thanks for your suggestion. It worked and still in execution and removing files ( as I can see free space increasing in bdf ) I think It will take very long time, but ultimately will make few space on my server

Can I use this script in crontab for periodic cleaning of this directory ??

Hi Rasheed
~~~~~~~~~~~
cd /var/spool/mqueue
rm *
Is not workig and returing with message " too many files"

But your earlier suggestion really helped me clearing many MBs of space on my disc and after getting solution from Dennis I interrupted and started Dennis's solution to learn more.

Thanks anyways.

Yogiraj
~~~~~~~
Thanks for your valuable input. Infact i was also afriad of using diff syntax for rm but I cound not find good man for "rm".

I am really thankful to all of you.

Regards,

Prakash.

[Yogeeraj_1]

>Can I use this script in crontab for periodic cleaning of this directory ??

Of course you can create and schedule a maintenace script... But it would be wiser to find the source of the problem.

If you need any further assistance, please let us know.


>but I cound not find good man for "rm".
man rm
is already very informative and simple. :)


good luck!
kind regards
yogeeraj

[Rasheed Tamton]

Hi Prakash,

500 thousand files are too much. That is why I suggested rmving the dir. find normally consumes CPU, but it depends on your system.

Before you use rm, you always make sure that you are in the correct dir by using pwd command.

rm has -i option. But it is not good for using with many files.

man rm

Regards,
Rasheed Tamton.

[Dennis Handly]

>Rasheed: In your case using find is not required at all.

You'll need to use find/ls if you have .5 million files. That "too many files" error.

>Can I use this script in crontab for periodic cleaning of this directory?

Sure. But why do you have so many files?
If you want to script it, you can add "-mtime +30" to remove files over 30 days old.

>Rasheed: That is why I suggested rmving the dir. find normally consumes CPU.

I would assume the cost would be the same with the find(1) only being a small cost of removing the files.