On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 17:40 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote: > On Sunday 19 March 2006 17:33, Jeff Vian wrote: > > On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 12:39 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote: > > > On Sunday 19 March 2006 03:33, Jeff Vian wrote: > > > > On Sat, 2006-03-18 at 21:54 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote: > > > > > On Saturday 18 March 2006 20:00, Tom Spec wrote: > > > > > > If /tmp gets full that would definitely cause problems > > > > > > with your system. > > > > > > > > > > > > What is the output of df? > > > > > > > > > > > > If /tmp is 100% full you can either go in there and > > > > > > delete stuff, or make it bigger. > > > > > > > > > > /tmp is under /, and there is 1.6GB free. I think that I had just > > > > > got something into a loop so that it was filling up with temporary > > > > > space. I had to reboot, and everything's fine now. Just a pebcak, I > > > > > think. > > > > > > > > What is your filesystem structure? > > > > /tmp being part of / can be a _bad thing_ in cases as you just saw. > > > > > > > > Only 1.6GiB of free space in / would not be a bad thing if / is small > > > > and <70% used. OTOH, if / is a large partition and usage is in the > > > > 90%+ range that is not a good thing. > > > > > > / is 7.6GB and 79% full. There is 1.2GB in there that could be moved > > > out, if necessary, though I'd prefer to keep it there if possible. > > > > > > I have plenty of free space on that drive. I could create a new > > > partition for /tmp. I know it is possible to redirect to the new > > > partition, but I'm not sure how to do it. Is it just a matter of > > > creating an fstab line, or would the presenct of /tmp under root confuse > > > matters? I presume I could not delete /tmp from the running system. I > > > could use knoppix, of course. > > > > I would do it this way. > > 1. create a new /tmp on the drive (partition and mke2fs to format it) > > > > 2. Add a line in fstab to mount it > > > > 3. empty the existing /tmp of files to free the space. This can be done > > on the running system since already open files are held open by the > > system until they are released. > > NOTE: you would not remove /tmp but would remove /tmp/* instead. > > > > 4. mount the new /tmp > > This can be done on the running system by using steps 3 and 4 in the > > right order. > > > > The trick here is that already existing files that are in /tmp would be > > hidden and not accessible once the new partition is mounted. By doing > > an rm on the existing files then mounting the new filesystem, any newly > > created files will be in the new filesystem and the previously existing > > and in-use files will continue to be used until they are released by the > > owning process at which time they will just disappear and the space is > > free. > > > Thanks for the detailed run-down. I'll try that this evening, all being well. > Glad to help, and hope it goes well.
