On 20120402_215620, Roger Leigh wrote: > On Mon, Apr 02, 2012 at 11:55:02AM -0600, Paul E Condon wrote: > > During my tests, I noticed that there was always a line in df, > > concerning /tmp in tmpfs. With RAMTMP=yes the line was labeled tmpfs, > > but with RAMTMP=no, the line was labeled 'overflow', or something else > > that I misremember as overflow. Now I surmise that tmpfs is being used > > during boot whatever the setting of RAMTMP, and is not being shut down > > correctly towards the end of the boot process after the loader is > > capable of reading /etc/defaults/rcS. Of course, it can't be as > > simple as that, and of course, I can't really understand, but that's > > the best I can come up with. There are reasons why I am not a DD. > > Have a look at /etc/init.d/mountoverflowtmp. > > Your root filesystem is full. This triggers the mounting of a > tmpfs on /tmp *irrespective* of the RAMTMP option, in order to > allow you to log in. > > Solution: free up some space on your root filesystem, and all > will return to normal. Mounting a filesystem on /tmp would have > solved this specific problem by making more than a megabyte of > free space available, which would avoid triggering this condition. > > > Regards, > Roger
Roger, Many thanks for being so patient with me. df does say the disk is full, but please read further. My root filesystem disk is a nominal 60GB partition on an 80GB HD. Other partitions are 2ea ext3 partitions of 19GB and one swap partition for the rest of the 80GB. (All partitions (except swap) are ext3 on all my disks.) As I say, df says it is full. But du -k -s -c says there slightly less than 3.74GB of data on the whole disk. Removing some data from the root filesystem can be done but before I do that I would like to understand what is occupying 15/16ths of the disk, and how to remove that and how to keep it from coming back. I think it is very very unlikely that tmpfs is to blame, but I ask your help because you have gotten me this far, and you already know how difficult I can be but nevertheless persist in helping me. What should I do? This is the ls of the root file system: root@gq:/# ls -l / total 116 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20120326_175618 bin drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20120325_095914 boot drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 3360 20120402_162358 dev drwxr-xr-x 137 root root 12288 20120402_163817 etc drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20120402_164014 home lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 20120313_070235 initrd.img -> /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-2-686-pae lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 20120216_114920 initrd.img.old -> /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-1-686-pae drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 12288 20120326_175618 lib drwx------ 2 root root 16384 20110611_113359 lost+found drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 20120328_040453 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20120328_034547 mnt drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20110611_113408 mpa2 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20110611_113416 mpa3 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20110611_113426 mpb1 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 20120402_164008 mpb2 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20110611_113530 opt dr-xr-xr-x 90 root root 0 20120402_161618 proc drwx------ 9 root root 4096 20120402_163817 root drwxr-xr-x 16 root root 780 20120402_161710 run drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 20120326_175619 sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20110504_055428 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 20110611_113530 srv drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 0 20120402_161619 sys drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20120402_171701 tmp drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 20110611_113530 usr drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 20120203_162430 var lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 20120313_070235 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-2-686-pae lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 20120216_114920 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-1-686-pae root@gq:/# This is the du command and results: root@gq:/# du -k -s -c /[^pm]* /m[^e]* 7172 /bin 18420 /boot 0 /dev 8556 /etc 4 /home 0 /initrd.img 0 /initrd.img.old 202628 /lib 16 /lost+found 4 /opt 1200 /root 668 /run 7576 /sbin 4 /selinux 4 /srv 0 /sys 20 /tmp 2873144 /usr 508676 /var 0 /vmlinuz 0 /vmlinuz.old 4 /mnt 20 /mpa2 20 /mpa3 4 /mpb1 111516 /mpb2 3739656 total root@gq:/# The tricky file argument in the command keeps du from including /media and /proc in the total file space count but picks up space from everything else in /. At the time this was done I had already moved the contents of /home into the directory /mpb2. I could have moved it back, but I wanted to compose this letter and send as a higher priority task. /mpa2 and /mpa3 are the second and third partitions of the HD that holds the root partition. Xwindows is not installed. I access this computer via ssh from another, newer computer running Squeeze. My experience is that under 4GB is about the right size for a Debian installation when loaded with the packages that I like to have, but maybe I have been doing something terribly wrong for a long time. I really don't know what the size should be in terms of the general experience of other Debian users. I've never been to an installfest, etc. Why the disagreement between df and du ? How is it possible? I could swap the two disks on the system and have the 250GB HD be the root file system. But it would probably become filled up to its capacity with me being no closer to understanding how I might keep the fill-up from happening again. Here is the actual output of df: root@gq:/# df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on rootfs 56710460 54282104 0 100% / udev 580720 0 580720 0% /dev tmpfs 116424 668 115756 1% /run /dev/disk/by-uuid/bdef667c-a248-4cb7-b509-943e28fe0f8f 56710460 54282104 0 100% / tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock tmpfs 232844 0 232844 0% /run/shm /dev/sda2 9612516 152684 8971540 2% /mpa2 /dev/sda3 9612516 152684 8971540 2% /mpa3 /dev/sdb1 57677500 184268 54563380 1% /tmp /dev/sdb2 182687364 303444 173103848 1% /mpb2 root@gq:/# If you know what's wrong, please tell me. If you want more information please ask. I need help. -- Paul E Condon pecon...@mesanetworks.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120403024350.gp3...@big.lan.gnu