Question

As postgres user (Linux) I am getting a "write error in swap file"

Asked by: ColmacIT

I su ("su - postgres") from root. I try to vii (vim) a file. I am getting the error "write error in swap file" when it loads and an error "E514: write error (file system full?) when I try to write. If I vi the same file as root, there is no problem.

Please help.

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Asked On
2009-09-01 at 07:21:18ID24698029
Tags

VIM

Topic

vi

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1
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125
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8

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Answers

 

by: medveddPosted on 2009-09-01 at 07:31:31ID: 25231963

Looks like your /tmp directory is full. Superuser (root) has a reserved space, and vi works for root. Please show output of command

df /tmp

 

by: ColmacITPosted on 2009-09-01 at 07:47:29ID: 25232113

Below is the result you requested:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup_ID_14438-LogVol2
                       4062912    139560   3713640   4% /tmp

Additionally - I am seeing a growing number of other errors that appear to be related to lack of space for user "postgres".

 

by: medveddPosted on 2009-09-01 at 07:50:35ID: 25232145

Maybe postgres is using /var/tmp instead of /tmp. What about free space on /var/tmp ?

 

by: ColmacITPosted on 2009-09-01 at 07:54:05ID: 25232182

54% used on /var/tmp

 

by: ColmacITPosted on 2009-09-01 at 07:56:02ID: 25232207

I have found a huge httpd log file in a directory owned by postgres (the file is owned by root). Could that be the problem?

 

by: medveddPosted on 2009-09-01 at 08:13:50ID: 25232403

Do you, by any chance, have quotas enabled?

 

by: ColmacITPosted on 2009-09-01 at 08:32:43ID: 25232633

No, but deleting the huge file solved my problem. Now I just have to figure out what happened. My guess is that logrotate could not restart httpd and the error log filled up with complaints. Thanks for the help.

 

by: ColmacITPosted on 2009-09-01 at 08:41:52ID: 31623029

Thanks - the problem was a huge log file from a run-away process

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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