File system problem

[Carlos Munoz Lopez]

Hi guys. I have a problem with one file system that is currently being used by an Oracle DB. According to bdf output the file system is using the 98% of total space. When I executed the du -k command to find the biggest file and delete so I can free some space, I got the following output:

2569598 /t01

Aparently the total filesystem is barely using 2.5GB, but bdf output tells me something different

/dev/vgBS/lv_t01.... 8388608 ...8180296 ... 208312 ...98%.... /t01

Is there any way to find out what is happening? What action should be taken to solve this problem? I would like some help on this. Thanks!!!

[Jeroen Peereboom · Accepted solution]

Carlos, probably an open file has been removed. Stopping all Oracle processes may close this file and release its diskspace.You may also want to install and use lsof. See other threads for lsof. Success, JP.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Carlos,

It is possible that you deleted a file which was still in use and hence the space did not get released even after the file was deleted. This space will get released only when the process that was using this file gets killed / terminate.

do a fuser on the filesystem and find out a list of the processes that are using the filesystem. Locate the process and see if you can kill it or bounce / restart it.

fuser -cu /mount_point

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

If you have lsof you can find the unlinked file using the option +aL1.

Use,

lsof +aL1 /mount_point

If you don't have lsof, you can get lsof from this link,

http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Sysadmin/lsof-4.70/

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Carlos,

You probably don't have a problem. I suspect that the DBAs have set up a sparse file for the DB's use. That's a file that defines the beginning and ending blocks but doesn't actually consume the space at that moment. It will slowly use & it will use no more until the DBAs assign it more.

For an example see man prealloc - it does the same thing. bdf sees the preallocated space while du sees the used space - perfectly normal & should not ba a concern. But check with your DBAs just to confirm.

HTH,
Jeff

[Kent Ostby]

Carlos --

Try this instead:

cd

find . -name +msize 1000000c -exec ll {} \;

This should list larger files for you to look for as targets.

Best regards,

Kent M. Ostby

[SS_6]

stop/start database or give a reboot if you can afford downtime.

[Carlos Munoz Lopez]

Thank you guys for all the help you gave. I will follow your advice.