Disk Space full


 
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# 1  
Old 11-25-2011
Question Disk Space full

I was tryin to copy a large file under /tmp location.

I guess the disk space got full and i got fork error.

Then I tried removing some files but the shell did not let me do anything
Code:
bash> rm apache22.tar
bash: fork: Not enough space
bash> pwd
/tmp
bash> vmstat 1
bash: fork: Not enough space


Somehow the unix SA fixed this. Do you know how to overcome this issue ?
# 2  
Old 11-25-2011
Would this be a Solaris system?

If so, /tmp is not a filesystems on a disk, but instead is using memory. You effectively consumed all available free memory when you filled up /tmp, so there was no memory to fork of a new processes. Your SA has sufficient privileges to use the reserved space to run commands: removing your files.

Take a look at df command.

You may want to consider using /var/tmp for these temporary files. Or talk to your SA and ask for space for your webserver.
# 3  
Old 11-25-2011
You mean all that SA would have done is to fire the rm command which did not work for me ?

I was not able to fire any command including df at the time of the issue.

Yes, the /tmp has some swap memory.
# 4  
Old 11-26-2011
This is a classic example of what happens when you run out of system resources like memory. The shell cannot create another process ( fork ) and thus you are restricted to the built-in commands provided by the shell you are using.

You copied the large file in /tmp which is tmpfs and resides on virtual memory. Dumping files in /tmp means consuming virtual memory. In turn, less room for other processes.

In this case, here is what you could do:
Code:
cd /tmp; echo *; >large_file

All of the commands are shell built-in (work in bourne and korn shells) and shell does not need to fork another process. So, cd lets you in the /tmp directory, echo lets you see the files in that and figure out the name of the file, > brings the size of the file down to zero solving your problem.
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