a log file has a so big size ! even large then the filesystem!

[timber]

Hi All
bdf show:
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vgfile/lvmsg 20480000 4309873 15159596 22% /msg
and in the directory ll show:
total 6905078
-rw-r--r-- 1 msg users 131288693050 May 12 09:15 queue_10.err

Now ,I've known the file is a sparse file for du -sk show the true size about 4G+,and xd show large of "0" from head of the file.

What I want to know is:
1.How can i reduce the file,or make the ll's show as nomal
2.The admin have clear the file by #>quwue_10.err. Is this a right way?

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi Timber,

If you do not need the to keep a copy of the data, you can zeroing the file;

# > /full_path_to_file/queue_10.err
or
# cp /dev/null /full_path_to_file/queue_10.err

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[avizen9]

hi,

#>quwue_10.err. Is this a right way?

this will balnk whole file and remain same attribute, if you feel this file doesnt require can do this, yes this is correct way, thanks,

[Ganesan R]

Hi,

You can use this as well.

#cat /dev/null > /path of the the file

[timber]

Additional:
My doubt:the admin use > clear a 5G file but when app reopen the file ,the size increase begin from 5G!So a 5G true size file maybe show us 10G by ls -l.and so on
the file will bigger and bigger....
Is this possble?

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,

The correct way of trimming any type of log file is
# > filename
It will trim your file to 0 (zero) bytes.

Suraj

[Michal Kapalka (mikap)]

hi,

no because when the file will be reopen the size will be zero.

mikap

[Ganesan R]

Hi,

In that case terminate the process which uses the space using lsof then restart the process.

The space will be released by the process only after it terminates.

[Jozef_Novak]

Hello,

use the trimming by "> filename" only if it contains plain text. Doing this to a binary file (for example /var/adm/wtmp) can corrupt the file so that it will no more be readable by the process that uses it.

J.

[timber]

Unfortunately,after i user "msg" account do the >file clear,but size of file still shown 130G+