SUMMARY: /var: file system full with only 81% capacity

Claudia Miller (millerc@onlinelife.com)
Wed, 14 Jan 1998 16:52:42 -0800

Probably someone was trying to send a very large attachment >15MB to a user and
while it would fill the /var directory temporarily, it would go down again.

Solution: reboot the box!
I had tried to start and stop the sendmail process but that didn't work. I
actually had to manually start the sendmail daemon after I rebooted so I'm not
sure if all my problems are over but at least I'm not running out of space
anymore.

Thanks to everyone for your help:
Daniel Lorenzini <lorenzd@gcm.com>
Rich Snyder <rsnyder@eos.hitc.com>
Casper Dik <casper@holland.Sun.COM> Extra big THANKS because you ALWAYS help us
out!
Rich Pieri <rich.pieri@prescienttech.com>
Jason Harrell <jason@jsa.com>
poffen@San-Jose.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
"Karl E. Vogel" <vogelke@c17mis.region2.wpafb.af.mil>
"Coffindaffer, Virginia" <Virginia.Coffindaffer@wang.com>
Art Schoenstadt <0085P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL>
Dave McFerren <davem@solve.net>

Claudia Miller wrote:
>
> Sun Gurus,
> While I've been lurking for a few months this is my first post. I will
> Summarize.
>
> Sparc-5 running Solaris 2.5
> I went away for 4 days and when I came back I had 120 messages waiting for me
> which are now off the mail server. I've been looking for solutions for 2 days
> (this is post Las Vegas vacation and my mind is still mush).
> Every hour since about Jan 10 or so I get this same message...
> This is an excerpt from my /var/adm/messages file:
> Jan 11 11:29:21 pegasus unix: NOTICE: alloc: /var: file system full
> Jan 11 12:29:23 pegasus unix: NOTICE: alloc: /var: file system full
> Jan 11 13:29:21 pegasus unix: NOTICE: alloc: /var: file system full ...
> <clipped>
> Jan 12 12:29:40 pegasus sendmail[21616]: MAA21616: SYSERR(root): putbody: write
> error: No space left on device ...
> Jan 14 07:29:17 pegasus unix: NOTICE: alloc: /var: file system full
> Jan 14 08:29:19 pegasus unix: NOTICE: alloc: /var: file system full
> ...
> I could understand how it would have been full while it had all of my email but
> now that I've downloaded it shouldn't it be alright? See below for df -k.
>
> /var is only 81% full
> # df -k
> Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on
> /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 86879 11839 66360 16% /
> /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s6 433639 198129 192150 51% /usr
> /proc 0 0 0 0% /proc
> fd 0 0 0 0% /dev/fd
> /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s4 86879 63045 15154 81% /var
> /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s7 910742 626001 193671 77% /export/home
> /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s5 192807 44391 129136 26% /opt
> swap 302736 56 302680 1% /tmp
>
> I'm wondering if this is someone trying to send a huge email attachment or if
> there is unmounted "stuff" on c0t3d0s4 or do I need to HUP or reboot the system?
> I've not installed the latest sendmail patch. I tried to do that today and it
> keeps hanging when it says checking patches... If there is anything else you
> need to know to help I'd appreciate it.
> Any suggestions would be most appreciative.
> TIA,
> claudia
>
> LifeTech Systems