/root file system full

[Matthew Seaman]

On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 08:51:56AM +1100, Ron Joordens wrote:

> My / filesystem is full. 109%. I want to know what is on the / filesystem,
> what I can get rid of, how to get rid of it and how to make sure that it
> doesn't happen again.
> 
> Any thoughts?

Check for core files (called 'foo.core' for many different values of
foo) -- you can just delete these unless you're going to get into
debugging in a serious way.

Check the contents of root's home directory, /root -- you should never
log into the system as root, especially not via a graphical login.
You shouldn't run any interactive command as root unless it's
absolutely necessary.  If you've got a /root/.kde or a /root/.gnome*
or a /root/GNUstep or a /root/.mozilla then delete those directories
straight away, and give yourself a good slap on the wrist for being a
bad boy.  There shouldn't be much stuff in /root at all.  There
probably shouldn't be any subdirectories of /root, except for the
stuff under /root/.ssh

To search the root partition for files matching certain conditions,
use the find(1) command.  The '-xdev' option lets you limit the search
to just the one partition.  Eg. to find all files modified in the last
week:

    # find / -xdev -mtime -7 -print

Or to find all files over 1Mb in size and produce a long-format listing:

    # find / -xdev -size +1048576c -ls

(that only produces a list of 39 files on my machine).

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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