Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 09:10:53 -0500 From: Brian T.Schellenberger <bts@babbleon.org> To: Alban Hertroys <dalroi@wit401310.student.utwente.nl>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Contradictory information? Message-ID: <09be72711140612FE5@mail5.nc.rr.com> In-Reply-To: <20020106135406.2CF311E59@solfertje.student.utwente.nl> References: <20020106135406.2CF311E59@solfertje.student.utwente.nl>
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On Sunday 06 January 2002 08:54 am, Alban Hertroys wrote:
> For some reason I recently got alert-mails that my /var filesystem was
> full, while there was only about 15MB of data on it. The filesystem is
> 60MB, so that should fit quite easily.
>
> I'm almost nearing the alert-mail situation again, so I'd appreciate if
> someone could tell me what is going on here...
This implies that there are files that have been deleted but not released.
Some programs, such as vmware, following the sequence
- open file
- delete file
and then much later
- close file
The files system rules cause the file not to be "really" deleted while the
process is still running, and the effect is like that on MVS when a file
exists but is not catalogued (hmmm . . . I bet MVS analogies aren't very
common on this list, are they?): the file is out there on the disk, taking up
space, but you can't find it via the filesystem tools.
The reason why it might be desirable to do such a thing is that if the
process is killed, the file will be deleted automatically by the O/S even if
the program is killed in such a procipitous way (power pulled or kill -9)
that the program can't actually ask for the file to be deleted.
Anyway, the *simple* solution is to reboot, but if you are wokring in a an
environement where that's problematic, look for a programs that are running
but shouldn't still be.
lsof might be helpful here (it's in the ports), but I'm not sure how it
handles this situtation. Also, it'll probably be hard to install it while
/var is skating on such thin ice :-(
>
> The computer in distress is a FreeBSD 4.3 (STABLE) box. [I think it will
> get an upgrade with the release of 4.5]
>
> As root I get this output:
> >pwd
>
> /var
>
> >du -d 2 -k
>
> 145 ./account
> 1 ./at/jobs
> 1 ./at/spool
> 3 ./at
> 11 ./backups
> 2 ./crash
> 2 ./cron/tabs
> 62 ./cron
> 5717 ./db/pkg
> 3 ./db/xdm
> 2 ./db/xkb
> 8542 ./db
> 567 ./log
> 3331 ./mail
> 2 ./msgs
> 1 ./preserve
> 52 ./run
> 1 ./rwho
> 74 ./spool/lock
> 8 ./spool/lpd
> 1 ./spool/mqueue
> 1 ./spool/opielocks
> 6 ./spool/output
> 1 ./spool/samba
> 17 ./spool/postfix
> 109 ./spool
> 1 ./tmp/vi.recover
> 2 ./tmp
> 20 ./yp
> 45 ./games/hackdir
> 3 ./games/larn
> 15 ./games/phantasia
> 68 ./games
> 1 ./ftp
> 12920 .
>
> >df -k|grep /var
>
> /dev/ad0s2e 59519 50816 3942 93% /var
> /dev/ad1s1g 248047 116 228088 0% /mnt/x/var
>
>
> Now let's hope the filesystem doesn't fill up while I'm not available,
> causing all your useful replies to bounce :/
--
Brian T. Schellenberger . . . . . . . bts@wnt.sas.com (work)
Brian, the man from Babble-On . . . . bts@babbleon.org (personal)
http://www.babbleon.org
-------> Free Dmitry Sklyarov! (let him go home) <-----------
http://www.eff.org http://www.programming-freedom.org
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