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Which directory is taking all space
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Which directory is taking all space

When I run df -H then it shows this result:

[opc@arm /]$ df -H
Filesystem                  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                     13G     0   13G   0% /dev
tmpfs                        13G     0   13G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                        13G  161M   13G   2% /run
tmpfs                        13G     0   13G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/ocivolume-root   39G   19G   20G  49% /
/dev/sda2                   1.1G  527M  537M  50% /boot
/dev/sda1                   105M  6.2M   99M   6% /boot/efi
/dev/mapper/ocivolume-oled   11G  148M   11G   2% /var/oled
tmpfs                       2.5G     0  2.5G   0% /run/user/0
tmpfs                       2.5G     0  2.5G   0% /run/user/987
tmpfs                       2.5G     0  2.5G   0% /run/user/1000

The ocivolume-root has only 19GB used out of 39GB i.e. 20GB is available. I want to find which folder is taking so much space. So I ran sudo du -hs * | sort -rh | head -5 and this is the result:

[opc@arm /]$ sudo du -hs * | sort -rh | head -5
du: cannot access 'proc/1715139/task/1715139/fd/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/1715139/task/1715139/fdinfo/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/1715139/fd/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/1715139/fdinfo/3': No such file or directory
3.6G    usr
2.6G    tmp
1.4G    var
469M    boot
153M    run

The total of above only equals around 8.2GB. I wonder if the error above where it cannot access some files/directories are taking up all space?

I rebooted and checked drive space and this is the result:

[opc@arm ~]$ df -H
Filesystem                  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                     13G     0   13G   0% /dev
tmpfs                        13G     0   13G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                        13G   26M   13G   1% /run
tmpfs                        13G     0   13G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/ocivolume-root   39G   15G   24G  38% /
/dev/mapper/ocivolume-oled   11G  145M   11G   2% /var/oled
/dev/sda2                   1.1G  557M  507M  53% /boot
/dev/sda1                   105M  6.2M   99M   6% /boot/efi
tmpfs                       2.5G     0  2.5G   0% /run/user/0
tmpfs                       2.5G     0  2.5G   0% /run/user/987
tmpfs                       2.5G     0  2.5G   0% /run/user/1000

As you can see now used space is 15GB down from 19GB i.e. it has freed 4GB. Now I ran the following command but still their total doesn't add up to 15GB.

[opc@arm /]$ sudo du -hs * | sort -rh | head -5
du: cannot access 'proc/7166/task/7166/fd/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/7166/task/7166/fdinfo/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/7166/fd/3': No such file or directory
du: cannot access 'proc/7166/fdinfo/3': No such file or directory
3.6G    usr
1.4G    var
497M    boot
27M     etc
25M     run

By the way tmp folder has at least 20MB space occupied but above command is not showing.

Comments

  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate
    edited September 2022
    • head -5 shows only top 5 entries. Remove it to see more.
    • Files in the root directory take space.
    • Deleted but still open files take space.
  • @yoursunny said:

    • head -5 shows only top 5 entries. Remove it to see more.
    • Files in the root directory take space.
    • Deleted but still open files take space.

    Yeah removing head -5 is showing all folders but they are not much and hardly 30MB each including tmp. I believe am in root folder which is /

  • @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

  • @alilet said:

    @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

    swapfile is an alternative to swap partition. OS uses it when you run out of RAM. If it's not active, you can disable it and delete it I guess.

  • jmgcaguiclajmgcaguicla Member
    edited September 2022

    The glob in du -hs * excludes hidden files, instead do du -hd1 /

    Thanked by 1alilet
  • @alilet said:

    @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

    Many small VPS's need a relatively big swap because they run out of RAM when they update.

    DirectAdmin recommends 2GB RAM and 4GB swap. CustomBuild uses a lot of memory when it build server components.

    So check it's requirement before you delete or resize the swap.

  • jtkjtk Member
    edited September 2022

    Sometimes I'll follow the path to where I find more space usage than I expect. So manually, on Linux, the process might look something like this:

    1. cd /
    2. sudo du -h --max-depth=1
    3. examine results
    4. if necessary, cd subdir/ to dig deeper
    5. goto step 2 until you've found what you're looking for

    And if you're using disk swap space regularly, you might want to consider getting more RAM if you can. Using disk swap space is probably killing overall system performance.

  • @kasodk said:

    @alilet said:

    @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

    Many small VPS's need a relatively big swap because they run out of RAM when they update.

    DirectAdmin recommends 2GB RAM and 4GB swap. CustomBuild uses a lot of memory when it build server components.

    So check it's requirement before you delete or resize the swap.

    This is Oracle 24GB Arm instance so can I safely delete swap?

  • kasodkkasodk Barred
    edited September 2022

    @alilet said:

    @kasodk said:

    @alilet said:

    @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

    Many small VPS's need a relatively big swap because they run out of RAM when they update.

    DirectAdmin recommends 2GB RAM and 4GB swap. CustomBuild uses a lot of memory when it build server components.

    So check it's requirement before you delete or resize the swap.

    This is Oracle 24GB Arm instance so can I safely delete swap?

    The only one that can answer that question is you, because you are the only one who knows your software requirements and the server's usage.

  • @kasodk said:

    @alilet said:

    @kasodk said:

    @alilet said:

    @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

    Many small VPS's need a relatively big swap because they run out of RAM when they update.

    DirectAdmin recommends 2GB RAM and 4GB swap. CustomBuild uses a lot of memory when it build server components.

    So check it's requirement before you delete or resize the swap.

    This is Oracle 24GB Arm instance so can I safely delete swap?

    The only one that can answer that question is you, because you are the only one who knows your software requirements and the server's usage.

    Server is empty. Only nginx and mariadb is installed running one Wordpress blog which is not live yet.

  • du -h --max-depth=1 /

    Thanked by 1alilet
  • EthernetServersEthernetServers Member, Patron Provider

    Here's a favourite of mine:

    FS='/';clear;date;df -h $FS; echo "Largest Directories:"; du -hcx –max-depth=2 $FS 2>/dev/null | grep [0-9]G | sort -grk 1 | head -15 ;echo "Largest Files:"; nice -n 19 find $FS -mount -type f -print0 2>/dev/null| xargs -0 du -k | sort -rnk1| head -n20 |awk '{printf "%8d MB\t%s\n",($1/1024),$NF}'

    It lists the top 10 largest files and directories.

    Thanked by 2iqbal dystopia
  • @kasodk said:

    @alilet said:

    @varwww said:
    sudo apt install ncdu

    This did the trick. It is showing 8GB swapfile!!!
    Shall I delete this file? Great utility by the way.

    Many small VPS's need a relatively big swap because they run out of RAM when they update.

    DirectAdmin recommends 2GB RAM and 4GB swap. CustomBuild uses a lot of memory when it build server components.

    So check it's requirement before you delete or resize the swap.

    I didn't think there's benefit to have Swap > RAM. If for whatever reason there was, you simply do not have enough RAM for normal use and "you're doing it wrong".

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