Hi,
We are using an application that has a defect and it is creating tons of files under the tmp dir.
We can delete the files, but the problem is that the process still has symbolic links to those files (under /proc/<pid>/fd and once deleted it is mentioned (deleted)).
This is causing a huge amount of symbolic links and eventually it reaches the system limitations.

Is there any way to delete those links? rm or unlink gives operation not permitted and we are pretty stuck with it.

Any work around is appreciated!

Thanks,
fcbman

yes, duplicate post. you need to stop/kill that process.

sorry for the dup post as I was not sure if this is newbie or not...
Is there any other way to solve it without killing the process?

Thanks,
fcbman

if that process is able to "drop" those files. Can you modify that application?

This is IBM product and the defect is in axis2 code.
Hence I dont have a way to change it...

not sure what you mean by "drop"... those are .mar files that are not needed for anything.
I deleted them under the /tmp, but it doesnt remove the symbolic link in the /proc/<pid>fd

this is not a defect, this is how it works by design. A file is opened/accessed by processes and will be removed only when no process uses it any more _and_ it was deleted from the filesystem completely, including all the (possible) hard links.
In your case the process keeps the file open, so you can only really remove that file if the process already exited.
If you can force the process to close those files (without exiting) you can remove them without killing the process, but we do not know that process so we will not be able to tell you if that process works that way.

It is a defect. a known one:
https://www.google.pl/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=...=/tmp/_axis2&*
the problem is that it is not resolved yet and we have 50K files opened...

this is not a problem of the filesystem and/or OS. This can be solved only by modifying (patching) that application, there is no other way.

As a workaround regularly (daily or hourly) clean the /tmp files that are older than 1 day.
The symlinks in /proc/ are not real i.e. only occupy some bytes in memory.
The number is limited, see max files in /proc/<pid>/limits.

You can remove the directory entries in /tmp, but the files will continue to occupy space until the process closes them.

Do you have access to the code that does like in the bottom post here?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8...out-restarting

Temp files are created whenever a new ConfigurationContext is created.
So create a ConfigurationContext **only once in a static block**
and use it in all the subsequent calls.

IF the application is dynamically linked, attach a debugger to it and make it call close(fd)
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...e-been-deleted

1 members found this post helpful.

well, write a script that deletes old links ? that runs on a clock and doesn't delete too many ?

BUT YES THERE IS ANOTHER ANSWER

#1 use a linux or BSD variant that compiles the World (from scratch), so you have "working" (not stale obstructive) source code for your whole system

#2 build World or LFS and all your software, excepting ones you can't (axis2 ?)

You now you have the bull by the balls.

You can insert a kernel code trap that does whatever you please when a process by that name runs, your path to compatibility is sure.

my "quick browse" of the situation suggests AXIS2 is an apache module that is not supported or made by IBM

else i'd say: hey call IBM they have good techs and stand behind their products !