On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, David Brett wrote:
> I have run into this a few times now. My disc will fill up for no
> apparent reason. I though I new which application was causing the
> problem, but yesterday I found out if it is, it is not the only one. As
> fast as I freed up disc space something was grabbing it. The only way to
> solve the problem was to reboot the computer. Once this was done a number
> of configurations were lost. Data on one applications was lost.
>
Most often what causes your disk to fill up is something is causing
CONTINUOUS entries into error log files, most often the mail system error
log file:
/var/log/messages
Try to look at the size of the messages file:
ls -l /var/log/messages
Wait a while and look at its size again.
Look at the end of the file:
tail /var/log/messages
Note the date/time of the last entries.
You can also look at the last 100 lines:
tail -n 100 /var/log/messages | more
Look at the tail end of messages file again, noting the date/time of
last entries.
If something is repeatedly causing system errors, resulting in errors
being logged, then this file will be growing very rapidly, most likely
with the same error repeated.
What is (are) the error message(s)?
Those messages should be a clue to what is wrong.
Note: there are other log files on your system (e.g. maillog, secure,...)
but, look at the system error log file first (/var/log/messages)
> I running rh 6.2 on a laptop with about 800meg of free disc space. When I
> run into disc space problem, I shut down all applications and try to find
> find out what is filling up the disc. I usually can'tfind out and have to
> reboot because the system becomes unstable.
>
How is your disk drive partitioned? Do you have more than one partition/
file system? In particular, is /var a separate file system?
(Look in /etc/fstab to see if there is a separate line for /var)
One of the reasons for having /var be in a separate file system is for
just such a case, where log files just blow up in size from some run-away
errors. Your system might be able to stay up if /var blows up, but may
not if you have just one partition (everything is under / file system).
> A second question. I would like to buy a larger hard drive and copy my
> present installation over to the new drive. How can I do this with out
> doing a re installation. The reasson I don't want to do the
> reinstallation is because, a friend of mine had to do alot of
> customization to get it to work. I don't know everything he did and
> right now I don't have the time to learn it.
>
I'm sorry I don't have time to address this second question right now in
enough detail to be useful. I'll try later, unless others jump in first.
>
> david
>
(Note: for the future, I suggest you post such a second question in a
separate mail message. It is easier to keep track of and to answer one-part
questions when various people start replying back and forth.)
>
>
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Jerry Winegarden OIT/Technical Support Duke University
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