Insufficient system storage

[Jeff Vian]

On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 17:40 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Sunday 19 March 2006 17:33, Jeff Vian wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 12:39 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > On Sunday 19 March 2006 03:33, Jeff Vian wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 2006-03-18 at 21:54 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > > > On Saturday 18 March 2006 20:00, Tom Spec wrote:
> > > > > > If /tmp gets full that would definitely cause problems
> > > > > > with your system.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > What is the output of df?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > If /tmp is 100% full you can either go in there and
> > > > > > delete stuff, or make it bigger.
> > > > >
> > > > > /tmp is under /, and there is 1.6GB free.  I think that I had just
> > > > > got something into a loop so that it was filling up with temporary
> > > > > space.  I had to reboot, and everything's fine now.  Just a pebcak, I
> > > > > think.
> > > >
> > > > What is your filesystem structure?
> > > > /tmp being part of / can be a _bad thing_ in cases as you just saw.
> > > >
> > > > Only 1.6GiB of free space in / would not be a bad thing if / is small
> > > > and <70% used.  OTOH, if / is a large partition and usage is in the
> > > > 90%+ range that is not a good thing.
> > >
> > > / is 7.6GB and 79% full.  There is 1.2GB in there that could be moved
> > > out, if necessary, though I'd prefer to keep it there if possible.
> > >
> > > I have plenty of free space on that drive.  I could create a new
> > > partition for /tmp.  I know it is possible to redirect to the new
> > > partition, but I'm not sure how to do it.  Is it just a matter of
> > > creating an fstab line, or would the presenct of /tmp under root confuse
> > > matters?  I presume I could not delete /tmp from the running system.  I
> > > could use knoppix, of course.
> >
> > I would do it this way.
> > 1. create a new /tmp on the drive (partition and mke2fs to format it)
> >
> > 2. Add a line in fstab to mount it
> >
> > 3. empty the existing /tmp of files to free the space.  This can be done
> > on the running system since already open files are held open by the
> > system until they are released.
> > NOTE: you would not remove /tmp but would remove /tmp/* instead.
> >
> > 4. mount the new /tmp
> > This can be done on the running system by using steps 3 and 4 in the
> > right order.
> >
> > The trick here is that already existing files that are in /tmp would be
> > hidden and not accessible once the new partition is mounted.  By doing
> > an rm on the existing files then mounting the new filesystem, any newly
> > created files will be in the new filesystem and the previously existing
> > and in-use files will continue to be used until they are released by the
> > owning process at which time they will just disappear and the space is
> > free.
> >
> Thanks for the detailed run-down.  I'll try that this evening, all being well.
> 
Glad to help, and hope it goes well.