Question

how to find strange file system space usage ext3 rhel5

Asked by: fizzeriano

Hi:

I want to know how to find and free some lost space in my file system
Specs.  RHEL 5.3 file system type = ext3
fdisk says: /dev/hda5 start = 3302 end=12875 blocks= 76,903,123. id=83, System = linux

(more than 70GB)

du -kms /mountpoint says: 37997 MB

In this FS i have 3 directories (plus lost-foound)

du -kms /mountpoint/dir1 says :  537
du -kms /mountpoint/dir2 says :  37,459
du -kms /mountpoint/dir3 says :   1
du -kms /mountpoint/lost+found says :  1

df -h says: /dev/hda5     size=72GB Used=67GB  Avail=538M Use%=100

5% of 75 is 3.75GB aprox for reserved usage

but where are the other 25GB?

thanks in advance for your help

all the commadns where issued as root

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Asked On
2009-10-26 at 11:51:21ID24844665
Tags

linux administration

Topics

Red Hat Linux

,

Linux Setup

,

Fedora Linux

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: JIEXAPosted on 2009-10-26 at 13:20:30ID: 25666338

Journal, probably?

 

by: fizzerianoPosted on 2009-10-26 at 13:23:54ID: 25666387

Well i stoped my application (oracle app) and the space appeared, any toughts?, ho do i check the journal space ?

 

by: georgekrajPosted on 2009-10-26 at 13:34:35ID: 25666532

Possibility1: Real disk space Issue
Possibility2: File descriptor issue
Please read those in detail as follows

Possibility1:
---------------------
Try to find the file or directory which occupies more space by using this command.
du -sk *|sort -rn

Eg: In this filesystem path  /a/b/c, if c is the file taking more space,
then first change to the directory 'a' and run this, you will get directory 'b' on top as it occupies more space. Then change to 'b' and run the 'du' command again, it will result to 'c' file. you may delete or move the file accordingly.
This is one possibility.
------------------------------------------------------------
Possibility2:
Second possibility is due to file descriptor issue.
If the files are deleted (by rm command) while they are being opened or used by a Linux program / process, the evil of open file descriptor problem arises and confuse the Linux file system on reporting the real figure of used disk space or free disk space available.

In order to resolve the fake disk space full problem, i.e. to reclaim used disk space, you need to kill or terminate the defunct process  in this case, the rm command that turns to be defunct process while the files are being used.

Once these defunct processes are terminated, the open file descriptor problem will be resolved, and both the du and df commands will agree to report the real file system used disk space or free disk space!

Solution:
find out and terminate or kill the defunct processes that cause open file descriptor problem, in order to resolve the difference of used disk space in du and df command
Eg:

lsof | grep "deleted" or
lsof | grep "oracle"

and look for Linux process ID in second column of the lsof command output. Then kill that process.
------------------------------------------------------------


 

by: fizzerianoPosted on 2009-10-26 at 14:22:05ID: 31646061

Thanks, it was the second possibility, i already tested in the servers, since this is a test environment

thanks

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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