Who is filling my disk?
I have my primary disk completely filled up:
root@kodi:/# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs 385M 12M 374M 3% /run
/dev/sda1 88G 84G 0 100% /
tmpfs 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb1 917G 429G 442G 50% /media/Cloud
/dev/sdd1 917G 813G 58G 94% /media/Tera
cgmfs 100K 0 100K 0% /run/cgmanager/fs
tmpfs 385M 0 385M 0% /run/user/1000
root@kodi:/#
/dev/sda1 is my primary disk where ubuntu is installed:
root@kodi:/home/fmf# cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=9fab4895-7ccb-4415-b26d-311a17036cda / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=7b158f58-e4c1-4717-aa5f-dbeaa79ab93c none swap sw 0 0
UUID=f9079f52-7661-48ad-9bc4-0d2452be66af /media/Tera ext2 defaults,nofail 0 0
UUID=fb1f92ee-54f5-44f8-ba92-544e90e6dfeb /media/Cloud ext2 defaults,nofail 0 0
root@kodi:/home/fmf#
Did some google search and found some commands to test who is the responsible, but I can't figure out who is filling it:
root@kodi:/# du --exclude=/media -cksh * | sort -hr | head -n 15
du: cannot access 'proc/16360/task/16360/fd/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/16360/task/16360/fdinfo/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/16360/fd/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/16360/fdinfo/3': No such file or directory
1.3T total
1.3T media
3.5G home
3.0G usr
1010M var
645M root
630M lib
99M boot
17M bin
15M sbin
13M etc
12M run
196K tmp
16K lost+found
12K srv
root@kodi:/#
Apparently there isn't any file or directory so big to fill the 84G of my disk.
Some days ago I found that the disk was full due to .xsession-errors that went crazy. I found this is a known bug in ubuntu and I solved creating a crontab line that every ten minutes delete .xsession-errors. In fact right now I don't have it anymore in my home directory.
Any help, please?
Solution 1:
The problem with your cronjob is that .xsession_errors is most likely still opened by some applications or system services which is why it will be hidden from the filesystem table when deleted, but it still is on disk and still errors will be written to it.
So it will fill up the disk, but now you can't see it anymore.
@rinzwind aims for exactly this behaviour when he (correctly) suggests to remove the cronjob and look for the errors. This is the only way to fix this problem properly.
As a workaround you could truncate the .xsession_errors file with a cronjob like this:
17 */2 * * * truncate -cs 0 path/to/.xsession_errors
But before doing this you REALLY should try to fix the underlying problems that create those error messages in .xsession_errors
Solution 2:
Who is filling my disk?
since you do this ...
I found this is a known bug in ubuntu and I solved creating a crontab line that every ten minutes delete .xsession-errors
it is impossible to answer this question.
Please follow the following to get us the errors we need to see:
- Remove that crontab line you added that removes
.xsessions_errors. - Reboot and then check from command line what is filling up
.xsessions_errorsusingtail -f 100 ~/.xsessions_errors. - When you find any problems that are repeated a lot copy some of them into your question.
- Add the crontab line back so you can use your system.
- Wait for a fix for the problem and apply then. Then remove the crontab line again (deleting the
.xsessions_errorsfile should always be avoided).