File system bafflement

[Catalin Soare]

On Sep 2, 2014 9:10 PM, "Robert Heller" <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
> At Tue, 2 Sep 2014 18:42:27 +0100 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not
for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 13:22:00 -0400
> > Robert Heller wrote:
> >
> > > All it takes is an open file that has been unlinked (ala rm). So long
as
> > > the file is open, the space is in use (and df will include that space
as
> > > used), but if there is no directory entry (eg the file *name* has been
> > > removed [unlinked]), du won't see the space as used. This often
happens
> > > when syslogd's log file(s) are deleted *without* sending syslogd a HUP
> > > signal.
> >
> > So is rebooting a solution to this sort of problem?
>
> Yes.  Less drasticly, sending SIGHUP to syslogd will also work (assuming
it is
> specificly syslogd that is hanging onto the open file).  Basically, doing
the
> needful thing to whatever process is hanging onto the unlinked file,
whether
> that means sending it a signal to close its open files and re-open new
ones
> (which is what SIGHUP tells syslogd to do), or simply killing off whatever
> wedged process that is doing this.  syslogd is just a common deamon that
> causes this, esp. when a novice sys admin sees his disk space vanishing
and
> decides to something like 'bzip2 /var/log/syslog' and then wonders why his
> disk space usage just got *worse* and du ceases to be helpful or accurate
> (when compared to df).
>
> >
> > - Richard.
>
> --
> Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
> http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
> heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
>
>
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Hi Richard,

I've seen situations where the filesystem was running out of inodes.

Could you please try df -i to see the inodes statistics?
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