William:

What filesystem are we talking about here?  What kind of files?

One of the most common instances that is similar to what you describe is when an
open file is removed.  If a file, say an application log file, is removed while
the application still has it open, the inode and it's status still exists, and
hence the space is not reclaimed.  The only way to then clear it up is a reboot.

The most common safe thing to do when trying to remove log files, is leave the
inode intact,  but just change it's contents.  i.e. cp /dev/null
/the/file/to/be/removed  or in similarly  > /the/file/to/be/removed

You may use lsof on a file to see if it is opend by anyone of application.

 

Cheers;

E!

-----------------
Eric Wilson
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert 
RedHat Certified Engineer



-----Original Message-----
From: Scully, William P [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 12:04 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: File Space Utilization


On one of our servers we run the Ext3 file system and today a DF command
showed the root filesystem was 96% full.  I ran some FIND commands
looking for files updated today and "large".  My goal was to find some
logs that I could maybe erase.  What's interesting is that after a
graceful shutdown/reboot the same file space shows 72% full.  (It's a
3390-3, so this is a significant change in the amount of free blocks.)
What's more, another FIND command doesn't locate a newly-closed large
file which would explain such a big discrepancy.  

Any ideas on what's going on here?

William P. Scully
Senior Systems Programmer
Computer Associates International, Inc

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