which files should be deleted to free filesystem root?

Haya.m · 11-22-2014, 05:41 AM

Hi all,

I have a problem with low disk space in the filesystem root so I used the commnd

Code:

df -h
    Filesystem                               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    devtmpfs                                 1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
    tmpfs                                    1.9G  160K  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
    tmpfs                                    1.9G  3.9M  1.9G   1% /run
    tmpfs                                    1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
    /dev/mapper/fedora_student--laptop-root   25G   23G  113M 100% /
tmpfs                                    1.9G   80K  1.9G   1% /tmp
    /dev/sda8                                477M  108M  340M  25% /boot
    /dev/sda7                                200M  7.9M  192M   4% /boot/efi
    /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-linux--data       423G  2.0G  400G   1% /transients

But if you see the used space is 23G from 25G so it should be 2G available not 133M, Why this?

And if so, I used the command

Code:

du -h --max-depth=1

to see what's using the most space and I found /usr 3.9G and var/ 6.4G. So to look inside the /var directory to look for the files which take up too much space I used the command

Code:

du -ah /var | sort -n -r | head -n 25

this gave me these four biggest files
992M /var/cache
989M /var/cache/yum/x86_64/18
989M /var/cache/yum/x86_64
989M /var/cache/yum

Which of them can I delete? Are these files important?

Thanks in advance

smallpond · 11-22-2014, 06:37 AM

In general its a bad idea to delete any file that you didn't create. There are tools for cleaning up built into the system. Start with

yum clean all

michaelk · 11-22-2014, 07:46 AM

Quote:

But if you see the used space is 23G from 25G so it should be 2G available not 133M, Why this?

ext2/3/4 file systems reserve 5% for root. This is supposed to decrease fragmentation and allow root to log in in case the file system does become full. You can reduce this amount with tune2fs but zero is not recommended on the /(root) file system

rknichols · 11-22-2014, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haya.m

I used the command

Code:

du -h --max-depth=1

to see what's using the most space and I found /usr 3.9G and var/ 6.4G. So to look inside the /var directory to look for the files which take up too much space I used the command

Code:

du -ah /var | sort -n -r | head -n 25

this gave me these four biggest files
992M /var/cache
989M /var/cache/yum/x86_64/18
989M /var/cache/yum/x86_64
989M /var/cache/yum

Which of them can I delete? Are these files important?

Is yum configured to save any packages it downloads rather than delete them after installation ("keepcache=1" in /etc/yum.conf)? Unless you have some reason to keep those RPMs around, I would run "yum clean packages" to remove them.

Haya.m · 11-22-2014, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rknichols

Is yum configured to save any packages it downloads rather than delete them after installation ("keepcache=1" in /etc/yum.conf)? Unless you have some reason to keep those RPMs around, I would run "yum clean packages" to remove them.

But I have ("keepcache=0" in /etc/yum.conf) so Is it safe to delete them?

Haya.m · 11-22-2014, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smallpond

In general its a bad idea to delete any file that you didn't create. There are tools for cleaning up built into the system. Start with

yum clean all

Thanks a lot it frees about 1G.

Haya.m · 11-22-2014, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

ext2/3/4 file systems reserve 5% for root. This is supposed to decrease fragmentation and allow root to log in in case the file system does become full. You can reduce this amount with tune2fs but zero is not recommended on the /(root) file system

I am sorry but I could not understand what you said. Now after running

Code:

yum clean all

it reads only 1.1G and it should be 3G as you see from

Code:

df -h
Filesystem                               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                                 1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs                                    1.9G  100K  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                    1.9G  3.6M  1.9G   1% /run
tmpfs                                    1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/fedora_student--laptop-root   25G   22G  1.1G  96% /
tmpfs                                    1.9G   28K  1.9G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda8                                477M  108M  340M  25% /boot
/dev/sda7                                200M  7.9M  192M   4% /boot/efi
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-linux--data       423G  2.0G  400G   1% /transients

What can I do to see that free space?