We have two EMC Celerra NAS where I work. They have 'nix based front ends.

There is an issue with one directory that appears to fill up. For example, a 'df' command will show that it is at 87% full - at which point some logging functions stop working. EMC advises to restart the 'nix front end to clear up the issue.

After a restart, a 'df' command will show that its usage has dropped from 87% to 44%. A careful look at the directories (and the files) in and under this directory show no change in the number or sizes of the files.

EMC claims this is a long standing UNIX / Linux bug.

Is that so??

thanks...

Under Solaris, I've seen that when a disk fills all the way up, df will continue to report 100% usage sometimes. Even after removing most of the files from the drive. I don't think I have ever seen it report numbers differently other than that. But given that, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there were other times it might not report properly.

Then ask them for a precise bug description and report. If such a serious bug exists and is affecting both Unixes and Linux, it must have been reported somewhere.

That's not a bug but the expected and correct behavior when growing files are still open. On Unix/Linux, removing a file from disk just make that file unreachable with its name, i.e. unlink its directory entry from its content (data). The data is freed and its space recovered only after the last process using the file closes it or exits.