[Techtalk] df isn't accurate?

Magni Onsoien magnio+lc-techtalk at pvv.ntnu.no
Fri Oct 25 23:09:54 EST 2002


On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 11:52:59AM -0700, Laurel Fan said:
> On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 11:39:08AM -0700, jennyw wrote:
> > Does df not accurately report free space information?
> 
> At some point before the disk is completely full, only root is allowed
> to consume space.  I believe the default amount of space reserved is
> 5%.  This is configurable when creating/formatting the filesystem, but
> I'm not sure if you can change it in an existing filesystem.

There may also be a shortage of inodes, since maildir use one of them
for each file (plus some for directories and stuff). 

Try df -i and if that reports IUse close to 100% you have a problem :-)

If you recreate the filesystem (or set up a similar system later), make
more inodes. Have a look at mke2fs(8), you'd want to use -b 1024 -i 1024
or something like that. I am not really sure if you should decrease the
amount of disk reserved for root - it can really come in handy after a
nasty disk crash (fsck will try to save the rests of the files there).

Unfortunately you can't change the number of inodes on an existing
filesystem.


Magni :)
-- 
sash is very good for you.



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