What to Do if a File System Fills Up
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What to Do if a File System Fills Up

When the root (/) file system or any other file system fills up, you will see the following message in the console window:

.... file system full

There are several reasons why a file system fills up. The following sections describe several scenarios for recovering from a full file system. For information on routinely cleaning out old and unused files to prevent full file systems, see Chapter 13, Managing Disk Use (Tasks).

File System Fills Up Because a Large File or Directory Was Created

Reason Error Occurred

How to Fix the Problem

Someone accidentally copied a file or directory to the wrong location. This also happens when an application crashes and writes a large core file into the file system.

Log in as superuser or assume an equivalent role and use the ls -tl command in the specific file system to identify which large file is newly created and remove it. For information on removing core files, see How to Find and Delete core Files.

A TMPFS File System is Full Because the System Ran Out of Memory

Reason Error Occurred

How to Fix the Problem

This can occur if TMPFS is trying to write more than it is allowed or some current processes are using a lot of memory.

For information on recovering from tmpfs-related error messages, see the tmpfs ( 7FS ) man page.

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