No space left on device and df shows 50% available

Ladowny · 02-04-2010, 10:26 AM

Hi

I've run across a strange problem - I get "No space left on device" errors, but df -h for that partition shows
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 32G 13G 18G 41% /

I'm using ext3 partition on Debian

I'm not uploading 18 Gig file or anything, just ordinary small files are uploaded and I keep deleting old stuff. I've already deleted 10Gig and the problem persists. I have rebooted the machine, forcing fsck

Code:

shutdown -rF now

Any suggestions ?

EricTRA · 02-04-2010, 10:43 AM

Hello,

Can you run in a terminal:

Code:

df -i

and post the output here?

Kind regards,

Eric

Ladowny · 02-04-2010, 11:03 AM

Thanks, looks like this is the issue

Code:

Filesystem            Inodes   IUsed   IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sda1            4194304 4194292      12  100% /

Never had this problem before. How can I increase number of inodes or remove some. I've removed the losts of small files, shouldn't number of free inodes increase ?

michaelk · 02-04-2010, 11:10 AM

To elaborate on EricTRA's post a data structure called an inode is associated with each file. Its possible if you have lots and lots of small files to run out of inodes but still have available free space on the filesystem. If this is the case the only way to add inodes is to reformat the filesystem. Since sda1 is your / partition reformatting is probably not desirable.

EricTRA · 02-04-2010, 11:32 AM

Hello,

As far as I know, deleting files should free up the inodes related to them. If they don't then you might have to run fsck to see if it reports any errors and try to fix them with fsck. Have a look at the man page for fsck:

Code:

man fsck

Kind regards,

Eric

Ladowny · 02-04-2010, 11:47 AM

I found a client uploading lots of small files, some zero size.

So problem solved. I am deleting them, did not pay attention to this directory before, just inherited these servers and still discovering new issues

Thanks for you feedbacks, really helpful.

EricTRA · 02-04-2010, 11:48 AM

That might be the culprid

Even 0 size files take up inodes. I'd tap him on the fingers!

Kind regards,

Eric