[ale] Re: 1/3 full disk, but it is full?

[hirsch at zapmedia.com]

Thanks for everyones suggestions on this problem.  Unfortunately, or
maybe fortunately, I went on vacation the day after the problem
arose.  In my absence we've found out:

If a thread has a file descriptor open and the file is removed, but
the thread does not exit cleanly, the filenam is gone from the
filesystem, but the the disk space is not released.  This is true at
least in reiserfs, and maybe in other fses, too.

Our application was creating large temporary files, then deleting
them, but not successfully ending the thread, so we gradually lost
room on our filesystem.

--Michael

Bao C. Ha writes:
 > 
 > A journalling filesystem usually adds the changes by appendding
 > in a log file manner.  It allows roll-backs if the writes to the
 > disk are unsuccessful, like in cases of power-failure.  Then,
 > periodically, the filesystem performs a garbage-collection to
 > return these spaces into the free pool.  In JFFS2, you can 
 > trigger a GC to reclaim the space of successful writes by 
 > sending SIGSTART to the gc-thread.  There may be a similar 
 > mechanism in Reisertfs.
 > 
 > Bao
 > 
 > > -----Original Message-----
 > > From: owner-ale at ale.org [mailto:owner-ale at ale.org]On Behalf Of
 > > hirsch at zapmedia.com
 > > Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 9:13 AM
 > > To: darjo at arches.uga.edu
 > > Cc: hirsch at zapmedia.com; ale at ale.org
 > > Subject: [ale] Re: 1/3 full disk, but it is full?
 > > 
 > > 
 > > darjo at arches.uga.edu writes:
 > >  > I've seen this a lot of times when files are deleted from 
 > > a running process 
 > >  > such as syslog.  Restart all the processes that access the 
 > > partition and see 
 > >  > if that helps.
 > > 
 > > Well, I've rebooted the machine.  (That restarts all processes,
 > > right?)  Somehow that freed up about 6 gig of free space.  There are
 > > no logs kept on this partition, so I don't know what got freed up.
 > > There are still 14 gig that have mysteriously vanished.
 > > 
 > > I'm wondering if it is the Reiserfs transaction log doing something
 > > weird.
 > > 
 > > --Michael
 > > 
 > >  > 
 > >  > Clint Ricker
 > >  > System Administrator
 > >  > NorthEast Georgia Internet Acess 
 > >  > 
 > >  > 
 > >  > > Anyone ever seen this?  I have a disk partition that 
 > > claims to be full
 > >  > > when I run df on it. 
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > [zap at zapstation /Assets]$ df -h .
 > >  > > Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
 > >  > > /dev/hda8              26G   26G  1.9M 100% /Assets 
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > But when I run du it is less than 1/3 full! 
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > [zap at zapstation /Assets]$ du -hs .
 > >  > > 8.0G    . 
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > It's a reiserfs file system with kernel 2.4.3.   
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > I'm very confused. 
 > >  > > 
 > >  > > --Michael
 > >  > > --
 > >  > > To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe 
 > > ale" in message body.
 > >  >  
 > > 
 > > 
 > > 
 > > --
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 > > in message body.
 > > 



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