[NTLUG:Discuss] /var out of space-Still-....help please

[Christopher Browne]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 19:26:01 EDT, the world broke into rejoicing as
"./aal" <al_h at technologist.com>  said:
> Dan Carlson wrote:
> > 
> > This could be caused by a problem with logrotate, where it continually
> > archives files in /var/log/news and /var/log/mail.  This problem occured on
> > my system, consuming several hundred megabytes of disk space before I found
> > it.  Here is Mandrake's advisory on the problem:
> > 
> > http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/security/MDKA-2000-009-1.php3?dis=7.1
> 
> close....
> I have already applied those updates, before this problem arose.
> 
> I cant print, logrotate sucks up all my processor, is it time to apply
> the MS solution(wipe and start over)?

There is a _GOOD_ chance that logrotate is "dying" because it's trying
to rotate logs, but has no space in which to rotate them.

Head to /var, and do a "du" to find an offending directory that
contains a LOT of stuff.  

Alternatively, head to /var/log, and do "ls -l" to see what the
big files are in there.

Likely there is a file or three in /var/log that are Very Large.

Take a look at one (say via "head /var/log/whateverbigfile") to make
sure that it contains text log data. (/var/log/wtmp likely won't)

Then, given that the file contained, text, delete it.

Perhaps delete several such files.

I've had a system break down because of files building up in
/var/spool/mqueue; if there are hordes of files there you might want
to delete the whole lot of them.

At any rate, after some such purging, you should NOT need forcibly
to reinstall.  It is _possible_ that you might want to restart some
services if their logs got deleted out from under them; you would be
forgiven if you considered that to require a reboot.

I suggest figuring this one out; the lessons should be handy in
future...
--
cbbrowne at ntlug.org - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/>
... The book [CLtL1] is about 400 pages of 8.5" by 11" Dover output.
Apparently the publisher and typesetter decided that this made the lines
too wide for easy reading, so they will use a 6" by 9" format.  This
will make the shape of the book approximately cubical.  Now, there are
26 chapters counting the index, and a Rubik's cube has 26 exterior cubies.
I'll let you individually extrapolate and fantasize from there.
-- GLS