[ale] how do I view system logs / check disk space

[Don Lachlan]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Jerald Sheets <questy at gmail.com> wrote:
> My favorite (on systems that don't have well laid out filesystems...i.e. / and swap) is
> du -a |sort -nr |less
> Sure, it's in blocks, but it shows you the largest files in descending order of size.  I usually go after those in the top 10 and that generally handles my problem.

I like:

$ du -xks dir/* | grep "^[0-9]\{6\}" # Show all subdirs/files which are >99999k

That will report in kilobytes (-k), won't cross fs boundaries (-x) and
will report a single (-s) sum for each entry in dir/ and their
sub-directories. This becomes very useful when you're tracking disk
usage down a few directories, amongst more than a handful of files. Or
use "-m" (megabytes). Or nothing. But not "-h".

Everybody, please, please stop using "du -h". Someone in Berkeley
kills a puppy each time you do - and you're forming bad habits that
make mistakes more likely.

-Don



> On Feb 24, 2011, at 12:56 PM, jwkite at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> My favorite command for identifying which directories are causing space problems is:  du -h --max-depth=1 which shows the size of each directory in human readable form without the details. I also like du -- max-depth=1 | sort -n to show the directories from largest to smallest.
>>
>> I know most of the experts here may know these commands, but it took me years to find them and I hope it may help someone else.
>> Josh Kite
>> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: James Sumners <james.sumners at gmail.com>
>> Sender: ale-bounces at ale.org
>> Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:40:33
>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts<ale at ale.org>
>> Reply-To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
>> Subject: Re: [ale] how do I view system logs / check disk space
>>
>> There is the GNOME Log Viewer[1] that you could use. The logs you
>> can't view are limited to root access. So you can view them if you use
>> a privileged account.
>>
>> There are two commands for checking disk space: `du` and `df`. `du`
>> will tell you how much space a specific directory tree is using, and
>> `df` will report the free space on all mounted file systems. If you
>> want to find large files, you could do `find /some/directory -type f
>> -size +20MB` to find all files larger than 20MB. KDirState[2] would
>> allow you to explore the large files on your system in a graphical
>> manner. Looks like Ubuntu has a GNOME version[3].
>>
>> [1] -- http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-system-log/
>> [2] -- http://kdirstat.sourceforge.net/
>> [3] -- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Baobab
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 12:17 PM, Ron Frazier
>> <atllinuxenthinfo at c3energy.com> wrote:
>>> I was trying to view some of the logs in /var/log with gedit.  I have
>>> some questions.
>>>
>>> Is there a gui based log viewer where I can pick the log from a list and
>>> view it quickly?
>>>
>>> There are some logs such as wtmp which gedit cannot edit.  Is there a
>>> way to access those.
>>>
>>> Also, what's the command to check how much disk space you're using and
>>> how much each thing in a directory is using?
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> Ron
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
>>> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
>>> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)
>>>
>>> Ron Frazier
>>>
>>> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
>>> linuxdude AT c3energy.com
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ale mailing list
>>> Ale at ale.org
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>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> James Sumners
>> http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/
>>
>> "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
>> pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
>> is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
>> drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
>>
>> Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
>> CH:D 59
>>
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>
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