[ale] Can't load X due to no free space on root (/)

[David Corbin]

I like to do "cd /; du -s * | sort -n".  This looks at each file and directory 
(with it's children) and provides list of these sorted by size used.  You can 
spot the "big consumers' real easily.  In the case of directories, just 
"drill down" a level doing the same thing.


On Thursday 18 December 2003 22:15, Trey Sizemore wrote:
> Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> >On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 09:09:13PM -0500, Trey Sizemore wrote:
> >>Computer was working like a champ a few days ago.  Tried to start back
> >>up yesterday and saw one of the messages during boot up say something to
> >>the effect of (sorry not in front of the machine now):
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>No room on / [0] expecting [20000]
> >
> >	Ouch.
> >
> >>I haven't done anything new to the setup or installed/upgraded anything
> >>new.
> >
> >	Hmmm...
> >
> >>Something I thought was weird (and I'm sure it's just my understanding),
> >>but when I did an 'ls -al' on my /home directory, I remembered that I
> >>still have a couple of  .iso images taking up some space (this is a 25GB
> >>drive).  So just out of curiosity I deleted them freeing up a couple of
> >>gigs.  But when I restarted the machine I got the same message about
> >>root (/) being full then taking me to the CLI login after some failed
> >>attempts to start X.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>I have used 'df' to see that the / partition is 5.7G of which there is
> >>no free space.  I have removed files from /tmp as well as a number of
> >>files in /var/log.  Still getting the same 'df' output.
> >
> >	5.7G for / ?  And it's all gone?  Ouch.
> >
> >	How have you got this partitioned?  I gathered that /home is
> >on a separate partition.  What about /usr and /var?  If /var is on
> >another partition it can't eat your root file system.  You sometimes
> >have to be careful about removing files from /var/log.  Sometimes they
> >are held open.
> >
> >	Did you do an ls -la on /tmp?  On /?
> >
> >	This make take a while but try this:
> >
> >	cd /
> >	du -s *
> >
> >	If /var is on your root partition, the next place I would go
> >looking would be in /var/spool.  Look for huge mailboxes or crap in
> >the sendmail queue (/var/spool/mqueue).
> >
> >>While I'm trying to find out what has taken all of the / space, I
> >>thought of allocating some of my /home partition (currently using only
> >>14%) to / so I can at least start x and log in to KDE.  I believe that
> >>parted is the way to go after reading the man page, but just wondered of
> >>someone knew the correct syntax for doing this (as in resize vs. move).
> >
> >	If you haven't figured out what has eaten you space, you are
> >taking real chances trying to manipulate things.  There's an off chance
> >that someone may have busted into your system and is storing stuff in
> >a hidden directory (or worse).
>
> After doing a 'find / -mount -size +500000k -print' I found a /backup
> directory that contained the Mandrake 9.2 3-disk set.  I moved them to
> my home partition and now all seems well.  With the freely allocated
> space available, I am now able to start the X server.
>
> Yippee!
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

-- 
David Corbin <dcorbin at machturtle.com>