Root "/" full. can't login

[Carmen Girley]

L2000 running HP-UX 11.0.
Can't loging to server as myself or root. / is full. How do I get into the system and clean up /var?

[Helen French]

Some points:

1) You can boot the system in single user mode and delete the unwanted files.

2) If /var is a seperate file system, then cleaning /var will not solve the problem. You need to find out the files/directories under root file system (/) and NOT mount_points. Check it with:

# bdf

3) Check /dev and /etc file systems too. Normally if you give '/dev/rmt/om' instead of '/dev/rmt/0m' while backup, then the root will get full !

[Stefan Farrelly]

You will be able to log in on the console as root successfully (if not then you need to reboot in single user mode), then look in / for any large files which shouldnt be there and delete them, or most likely you have some large files in /dev or /etc which you should delete.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

You need to interrupt the boot process, and come up in single-user mode.

Only / will be mounted at this time so if you need to clean up /var, you need to mount it manually, clean it up, and umount it.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Carmen:

As indicated, once logged-in, do two things:

1) Do *not* use anything other than 'cleanup' to manage the /var/adm/sw directory!

2) Look for non-special files in '/dev/'. A very commen mistake is to miskey /dev/rmt/om' when you meant '/dev/rmt/0m', thereby creating a large "backup" file in the '/dev/' directory.

Regards!

...JRF...

[PIYUSH D. PATEL]

Hi,

Boot the system in single user mode
ISL > hpux -is

Then go to the /var directory and delete the log files. Check for the big files greater then 2MB by this command

cd /var
find . -type f -size +2000000c -exec ll {}\; |sort -rn|more

Then check for the log files > 2MB and trim them.

Check for /dev/rmt/* file if the size is more...and delete them.

Check for the size of wtmp, syslog.log and other log files.

Piyush

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Hi Carmen


Try doing a ftp as a root

the cd / var/adm or the directory
delete filename

I hope you can ftp to it .


the second way is to boot it in sigle user mode.


Manoj Srivastava

[Shahul]

Hi

U reboot the system. While booting disturb the auto boot process and get in to ISL prompt. Then issues this command
ISL>hpux -is

Now system will take U to single user mode.

Then check up for unwanted big files in /

#find / -xdev -name core -print Will tell U whether any core is there or not. If it is there delete those

then go to /var

#cd /var
#du -a | sort -n

This will list U all the files in order of size. Check up for the big log files and trim it or compress it.

Normally ther are /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log, /var/adm/wtmp, /var/adm/btmp..etc

Check up in /dev directory for a big file which is created by wrong backup command.

At last, If rqd U can think of increasing / file system, provided U should have free space in vg00 and should be contigous.

Best of luck
Shahul

[Juan Manuel López]

Boot the system on single user mode
hpux -is
Then search for large files.
Delete the files ( first empty then with " > file_name ).
boot the system normaly.
Try this.

Juanma.

[Martin Johnson]

cd /
du -kx | sort -rn | more

This will sort the directories by largest contents. Check those directories first for anything unusual.



Marty