On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 08:55:11AM -0700, David G. Miller wrote:
> "Dan Track" <dan.track@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >I've got a directory /var/spool/mqueue that is at 3.6G. The problem is
> >that I've deleted everything in the directory but the size reported
> >from du -hs is still reported as 3.6G. I've shutdown all potential
> >sevices that could possibly be using teh directory e.g sendmail,
> >httpd, syslog but it hasn't helped if I run an lsof or fuser against
> >the directory I get no connections listed.
> >
> >Could someone please help me figure this weird problem out.
> Is it the directory itself that still shows 3.6G? That is, what does ls
> -lh /var/spool show for the mqueue directory? Since you've already
> disabled all of the services that may access the directory, why not nuke
> it (rm -rf /var/spool/mqueue) and then re-create it? Just make sure you
> get the ownership and permissions right.
>
> If the directory contained a large number of small files, it's possible
> that it's just taking the file system some time to "catch up." At a
> previous job I had to wipe clean a very bushy directory structure with
> several hundred thousand files between test runs. If we could, we would
> put this directory structure on a separate file system since it was
> faster to unmount it, format it and remount it than it was to rm -rf the
> directory structure. Could something like this be going on?
>
It is my understanding that a directory can become large if it now
contains, or EVER HAS CONTAINED a large number of entries. Once it has grown
it can be shrunk only by deleting and re-creating it. Removing its
contents does not do the trick because it is the directory itself
that has grown. (remember, in Unix everything is a file... including
directories.)
--
---- Fred Smith -- fredex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -----------------------------
The eyes of the Lord are everywhere,
keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:3 (niv) -----------------------------
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