UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,

Please advice me is it safer to use the following command to free up (truncate) space in HDD.

1) > /usr/adm/messages
2) > /usr/adm/sulog
3) > /usr/adm/ctlog
4) > /tmp
5) > /usr/adm/sa
6) > /var/spool

Thanks in advance

Rukshan

Well, >directory sounds like a shell error:

Code:

$ mkdir dd
$ >dd
ksh[2]: dd: cannot create
$

There are several common strategies for these files and dirs. For log files, daily rotation and compression with deletion of >N days is sensible. For /tmp, finding the flat files and empty sub-directories older than N days, using fuser to see if they are in use, and deleting the unused is safer than a complete zap (which a boot does on many systems). You forgot /var/tmp/, which is a long term public temp space, and as such has to be cleaned more gently, focusing on large files more than old fiels. Sorting files and dirs in reverse order allows you to remove files before their dirs. Note that removing a file updates the parent dir mod time.