[SOLVED] Problem with full /tmp

kikinovak · 10-16-2013, 04:34 AM

Hi,

I have a strange problem with the /tmp directory on my Slack64 workstation.

Code:

[root@alphamule:tmp] # pwd
/tmp
[root@alphamule:tmp] # rm -rf *
-su: /usr/bin/rm: Liste d'arguments trop longue

The last error message means too many arguments.

Something seems to have spammed my /tmp directory. According to du -sh /tmp, there's about 900 MB of files in there. No idea where that's coming from.

Any idea how I can clean up this mess?

acid_kewpie · 10-16-2013, 04:39 AM

you could start by just looking at what files are there, but when the commandline is too long, you can use find to process one file at a time:

find /tmp/whatever -exec rm -f {}\;

or xargs:

ls /tmp | xargs rm

kikinovak · 10-16-2013, 07:46 AM

Thanks, that helped! Though it took about half an hour to complete deletion. On a quad-core with 4 GB RAM.

There was a shitload of /tmp/509567493afdc67 and similar files. I don't have the slightest idea what application spewed these out. Hmmmm.

cheers,

Niki

acid_kewpie · 10-16-2013, 08:31 AM

if they come back, you can try something like lsof to see what process has the filehandle open.

Habitual · 10-16-2013, 12:00 PM

I personally use

Code:

*/15 * * * * /usr/sbin/tmpwatch --atime 1 /tmp --exclude=/tmp/SBo/ > /dev/null 2>&1

to keep things nice and neat.

6.4M /tmp

Bazzaah · 10-16-2013, 12:23 PM

In addition to /dev/shm, you can also add a line to fstab to make your /tmp tmpfs and your /tmp will be cleared on reboot.

I'm sure you know that already, just sayin'

Code:

tmpfs            /tmp         tmpfs       defaults         0   0

vivanguarda · 10-16-2013, 01:43 PM

It´s an interesting matter. Can I suggest another possibilities?

1)Using /rc.d/rc.local_shutdown ( /usr/bin/find /tmp -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -print0 | xargs -0r /bin/rm -rf )

http:ww.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/command-to-clean-tmp-at-shutdown-417547093//w4/

2)There are a pair of excellent Mr. Woodsman scripts. If you will use kde4 you should some adpatations, but it was used a lot in kde3.

And tmpfs has memory quantity questions, insn´t ?