/tmp fills up and doesn't clear itself

cz1179 · 01-09-2005, 06:46 PM

I ran /scripts/securetmp last week and ever since the /tmp directory gets loaded almost daily. I have to go in and manually clear out the /tmp/logwatch*/ files shown below to get it back to normal 2% or so (it shoots up to 100% sometimes).

How can I correct this?

root@server [/tmp]# cd logwatch.OJp30518
root@server [/tmp/logwatch.OJp30518]# dir
(null) ./
(null) ../
(null) autorpm
(null) clam-update
(null) cron
(null) exim
(null) http
(null) maillog
(null) messages
(null) pureftp
(null) rt314
(null) samba
(null) secure
(null) tac_acc
(null) up2date
(null) vsftpd
(null) xferlog
(null) yum

WHM shows it was 243MB total in size.

I did chmod -v 777 /tmp

My /etc/fstab is

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults,usrquota 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /extra ext3 defaults 1 1

How do I correct this issue? Am I supposed to increase the partition for /tmp? If so please explain how as I've never touched it before. I know for a fact that it is specifically the /tmp/logwatch.OJp30518 filling up the /tmp partition.

Specs:
cpanel 9.9.9 R-70
Fedora Core 2
2x250GB IDE Disks (62GB used on primary only / less than 20% backup)
About 100 domains

rjlee · 01-10-2005, 03:50 AM

First off, you don't have a /tmp partition. The files stored in /tmp are in fact stored in the / partition.

I don't know off-hand why the files aren't being cleared out; I'd assume that it would be a problem with the program writing them.

If the directory is always called /tmp/logwatch.OJp30518 then you have the option of creating a symbolic link to another directory, like this:

Code:

cd /tmp/
rm -rf logwatch.OJp30518
mkdir /var/logwatch_temp
ln -s /var/logwatch_temp logwatch.OJp30518

This will cause any files written to /tmp/logwatch.OJp30518 to be written to /var/logwatch_temp instead.

You could use gnuparted to resize your / partition (you can find it on freshmeat.net). You also have the option of creating a partition of type tmpfs, which will be stored entirely in memory and hence cleared on each reboot (this will take up RAM, but not disk space). You'll find instructions on that if you search LQ for tmpfs.