Ubuntu – How to clean up dev/sda1 as it’s full

disk-usagememory usage

I've been doing jmeter tests and have had a few OutOfMemoryExceptions, so I've bumped up the heap memory in JMeter. But now it seems I can't run anymore tests as it says I'm using 94.9% of 14Gb.

When I use df -h it says dev/sda1 is full

I was wondering if anyone can help me? I think it has to do with the JVM from the jmeter

Best Answer

Start by tracking down where the excess usage is being stored. If you have no idea, start from the mountpoint for /dev/sda1:

mount | grep sda1

Use the du command. If /dev/sda1 is mounted on / ("root"):

du --max-depth=1 --human-readable / | sort --human-numeric-sort

This will list the first level of directories contained in the specified path, in order from smallest to largest. You can increase the depth past 1 to get details of the subdirectories, or change the path to specify a single directory. You can also use the short flags.

For instance, if your username is ubuntu and you want to inspect your home directory:

du -d1 -h /home/ubuntu | sort -h

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Ubuntu – My sda1 is almost full. How to clean it

Install Ubuntu Tweak and use the Computer Janitor to remove unnecessary files.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/next  
sudo apt-get update  
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

I took this suggestion, as well as others, from here: Is system cleanup/optimization needed.

Ubuntu – Who is filling the disk

The problem with your cronjob is that .xsession_errors is most likely still opened by some applications or system services which is why it will be hidden from the filesystem table when deleted, but it still is on disk and still errors will be written to it.
So it will fill up the disk, but now you can't see it anymore.

@rinzwind aims for exactly this behaviour when he (correctly) suggests to remove the cronjob and look for the errors. This is the only way to fix this problem properly.

As a workaround you could truncate the .xsession_errors file with a cronjob like this:

17 */2 * * *  truncate -cs 0 path/to/.xsession_errors

But before doing this you REALLY should try to fix the underlying problems that create those error messages in .xsession_errors

Best Answer

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