Hi, I'm running Red Hat 9.0 and my /var partition is 300Megs. My system claims that /var is 100% full using df -k but when I "cd /var" then do "du -h" it shows only 27 Megs in use. Why the discrepancy?

Thanks,
Phil

You should post the output of those commands and also post fdisk -l

No problem, here's the output from df -k, /var of 'du -h' and fdisk -l:

[root@node28 root]# df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3 1106832 882128 168480 84% /
/dev/hda1 101089 21212 74658 23% /boot
none 514928 0 514928 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda6 15662412 2000092 12866704 14% /scratchlocal
/dev/hda5 295564 280310 0 100% /var
head1:/export/home2/xywang
153834884 103298772 42721696 71% /home/xywang
head1:/export_prism/prism/pgi
76896224 20041784 52948244 28% /prism/pgi
head1:/export_prism/prism/chemistry
76896224 20041784 52948244 28% /prism/chemistry
head1:/export/home2/hyjoo
153834884 103298772 42721696 71% /home/hyjoo
head1:/export/home2/mmckee
153834884 103298772 42721696 71% /home/mmckee
[root@node28 root]# cd /var
[root@node28 var]# du -h
12K ./lost+found
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat1
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat2
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat3
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat4
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat5
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat6
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat7
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat8
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/cat9
1.0K ./cache/man/X11R6/catn
11K ./cache/man/X11R6
1.0K ./cache/man/cat1
1.0K ./cache/man/cat2
1.0K ./cache/man/cat3
1.0K ./cache/man/cat4
1.0K ./cache/man/cat5
1.0K ./cache/man/cat6
1.0K ./cache/man/cat7
1.0K ./cache/man/cat8
1.0K ./cache/man/cat9
1.0K ./cache/man/catn
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat1
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat2
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat3
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat4
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat5
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat6
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat7
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat8
1.0K ./cache/man/local/cat9
1.0K ./cache/man/local/catn
11K ./cache/man/local
1.3M ./cache/man
1.3M ./cache
1.0K ./db
1.0K ./empty/sshd
2.0K ./empty
2.0K ./lib/alternatives
15K ./lib/dhcp
1.0K ./lib/games
1.0K ./lib/misc
1.0K ./lib/nfs/statd/sm
1.0K ./lib/nfs/statd/sm.bak
4.0K ./lib/nfs/statd
7.0K ./lib/nfs
21M ./lib/rpm
449K ./lib/slocate
1.0K ./lib/up2date
22M ./lib
1.0K ./local
1.0K ./lock/subsys
2.0K ./lock
1.0K ./log/vbox
2.9M ./log
1.0K ./nis
1.0K ./opt
1.0K ./preserve
1.0K ./run/console
1.0K ./run/netreport
1.0K ./run/saslauthd
1.0K ./run/sudo/root
2.0K ./run/sudo
19K ./run
1.0K ./spool/PBS/aux
1.0K ./spool/PBS/checkpoint
547K ./spool/PBS/mom_logs
1.0K ./spool/PBS/mom_priv/jobs
5.0K ./spool/PBS/mom_priv
11K ./spool/PBS/spool
5.0K ./spool/PBS/undelivered
572K ./spool/PBS
4.0K ./spool/anacron
1.0K ./spool/at/spool
2.0K ./spool/at
509K ./spool/clientmqueue
1.0K ./spool/cron
1.0K ./spool/lpd
1.0K ./spool/mail
1.0K ./spool/mqueue
1.0K ./spool/repackage
1.0K ./spool/up2date
1.0K ./spool/vbox
1.1M ./spool
1.0K ./tmp
3.0K ./yp/binding
22K ./yp
27M .
[root@node28 var]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20020396032 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2434 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 14 275 2104515 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 276 415 1124550 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 416 2434 16217617+ f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 416 453 305203+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 454 2434 15912351 83 Linux
[root@node28 var]#

Just wondering, is this site for easy Linux questions or the really hard ones? I seem to have stumped people 3 times now.

Thanks,
Phil

Um, this is an extremely old thread, but just for those who stumble over it e.g. during a search: as far as I know "du" looks only at the files which are closed during its run, hence (possibly) the discrepancy...

Answering my own post..

Turns out that the partition was out of inodes. Whoever formatted the partition did so with chunks that were too large.

So anybody up for setting up a site called www.reallyhardlinuxquestions.org ?

-Phil

My first understanding would have been, that there were too many (small) files. But ...

... this indicates otherwise. How (what program, which options) can one even format "with chunks that were too large"? What are chunks? Can you please explain a little more detailed...