Re: Possible 2.6.23 regression - Disappearing disk space

["James Ausmus" <james.ausmus@gmail.com>]

On 10/25/07, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> wrote:
> James Ausmus wrote:
> > Since updating my laptop to 2.6.23, occasionally all of my free disk
> > space on my root partition will just go away, with no files accounting
> > for the space, with no odd messages in dmesg or my syslog. If I
> > reboot, I immediately have the proper amount of free space again. Here
> > is the output of a du -sx * on /, and the output of the df command
> > when the problem is occuring, followed by the same info after a fresh
> > reboot (literally just did the command in the failed state, then
> > immediately rebooted and ran the same commands again) - any thoughts
> > as to what might be happening?
> >
> Clearly some process is still using a deleted file. However, if it
> doesn't happen with 2.6.22.x kernels, it would seem fall under the
> category of regression, in the "used to work" sense. Before going
> further you may want to be really sure that an older kernel doesn't do
> this, so no one wastes time on a non-problem.
>
> Assuming the older kernel works fine, it's possible that some new
> behavior of the kernel as causing a process to misbehave, and step one
> is to use lsof and try to find the process. It's possible that "top"
> might be useful, although whatever is using the disk space may just be
> lurking.
>

OK, false alarm, this is definitely a userpsace (or a user... :)
problem - had a 12GB .xsession-errors file that I had deleted but was
still being held open - now I just have to determine why I have a 12GB
.xsession-errors file... :(

Thanks for the help all!

-James

> --
> Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
>    "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
> the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot
>