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Date:      Thu, 03 Apr 1997 18:38:17 -0800
From:      FreeBSD Administrator <freebsd@workgrp.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Where is the 'procfs' filesystem?
Message-ID:  <2.2.32.19970404023817.00690ba4@207.207.207.90>

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Greetings fellow BSDers,

I've inherited a small mail server that has recently started spewing out
errors about full file systems and temporary write errors that has me
baffled. The machine is running this version of FreeBSD, on a 486 system
with a small IDE disk:
bonkers: /kernel: FreeBSD 2.0.5-RELEASE #0: Wed Jul  5 20:22:26 PDT 1995

All seems well, ie, mail flows in and out, but the console keeps displaying
this message:
Mar 31 19:22:16 bonkers /kernel: uid 0 on /: file system full

Trying to process the mail queue gives:
bonkers: {78} sendmail -q
mail.local: temporary file write error

The only thing I can see is that the "procfs" file system is 100% full.
Where the heck is this thing defined? Could this be the source of the
problem? Any suggestions on how to fix this?

bonkers: {79} df
Filesystem  1K-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/wd0a       24815    16201     6628    71%    /
/dev/wd0s1e    206323   123258    66559    65%    /usr
procfs              4        4        0   100%    /proc

I don't see anything in the disklabel that would indicate that "procfs" is
real filesystem and the docs talk about it's function as related to tracking
processes but not how or where it's defined, and how to "enlarge" it.

extracted from /var/log/messages:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 31 19:22:16 bonkers /kernel: uid 0 on /: file system full
Mar 31 19:28:51 bonkers /kernel: uid 0 on /: file system full
Mar 31 19:28:51 bonkers syslogd: /var/log/maillog: No space left on device
Mar 31 19:28:51 bonkers /kernel: uid 0 on /: file system full

I'm in the process of building a new, larger machine but given everything
else I have to do, that won't happen anytime soon, so I'm hoping this is a
'fixable' problem. All space on this tiny disk is allocated, so another idea
I has would be to backup both filesystems with cpio, carve up a new disk and
restore the existing system into a larger home. Is there any equivalent to
SCO's emergency boot & root floppies, or do I have to try to cook up my own?

Any and all comments, tips, suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Marty Gordon
marty@workgrp.com




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