%IUSED for /var

[Sushil Singh_1]

Hi All,
Having problem with /var directory. When I vi a file it would complain about not enough space in the device. when I do a bdf its show that its actual space used is on 25% but the %Iused (% of Inode used ) is 100 %. I know its because of the # of file in the /var, but I don't know how to decrease it. I tried deleting somefile, but was hoping if someone knew better ways to solve this issue.

[Patrick Wallek]

What is the actual size of /var and what is the size of the file you are trying to vi? If this is a vxfs file system, which it should be, the inode shouldn't be an issue as there is really no inode limit in a vxfs filesystem.

What is probably happening is that when you vi a file, vi makes a copy of it in /var (/var/tmp I believe) and there is probably not enough space available in /var for the copy of the file to succeed.

Compare the size of the file with the space left in /var and if the file is larger than the space left, you have found your problem.

[Anil C. Sedha]

Sushil,

Run iostat to see which of your disks is being utilised the most.

You may run iostat with -t option where t is used for specifying duration.

Also, you may run

sar 1 10

this will give you a output of your io's in use and free and what is causing then to fill up, a application or a system process.

Once you get to know which disk is showing the maximum I/O you may find what volume group it is configured into, and then if there is some database or something loaded on that disk then use "top" command to see a corresponding process. You may cancel or kill that process and you will be raring to go.

Regards,
Anil (Don't forget to assign points if the answers are valuable to you. I might have answered many of your questions, but you haven't been providing points to them. maybe too busy :-)

[Martin Johnson]

Is this any file you try to vi, or is it a large file? If it is any file, it is an inode issue. For an inode issue, you will have to delete files and/or increase the size of /var. This will require going into single user mode (you would not have to do this if you have JFS, but you wouldn't be having an inode problem if you had JFS).

If it is a file size issue, and /var is not a JFS system, create a new file system for /var/tmp. This will allow you to have more space available without having to reboot into single user mode.

HTH
Marty

[Anil C. Sedha]

Sushil,

Another good way of verifying what is causing a high I/O utilization can be seen using GlancePlus Monitor.

See if this helps you. You may select Report --> Application List at the initial screen.

That's all i can think of right now.

[Ted Ellis_2]

if you need to clean out a large number of files... try this:

cleanup -c 1

it will commit any patch that has been superceded at least 1 time and will remove all of the saved files in /var/adm/sw... which can be a lot if you have applied patches but never cleaned up. I make it a habit to do this following a new patch series... after about a month of run in to verify that no problems were introduced.... could be very effective for you...

this tool is not on 10.20 (I think)

[Tony Flaherty]

cleanup is available under 10.20

Tony