hung vi process tying up disk space

[Doug Wilburn]

A user (a DBA) tried to vi a huge file. After vi was taking so long to return, he realized what he was trying to do and in another session, deleted the file. He did this 2 times. Now the two vi process are "hung" - root can't kill the process, even with kill -9. In addition, the file system (where these files were located) is showing it is nearly full but a "du" and searching the fs doesn't reveal any large files anymore. What can be done - besides shutdown/reboot?

[Dennis Handly]

>is showing it is nearly full but a "du" doesn't reveal any large files

That's what happens when you delete large open files.

>What can be done - besides shutdown/reboot?

That's probably about it, unless they are zombies.  Any processes taking lots of CPU time or doing lots of I/O?