Centos /dev/sda1 partition memory issue

Question

We have a problem with /dev/sda1 partition memory issue.

It takes about one week to be filled in 99% without reason. To fix it we just need to reboot server and memory usage back to about 35%.

Total space at this partition is 9.9G.

Please advise,

cheers

Answer 1

You have a file that is being deleted, but not closed by the process that created it. Before you do a reboot, do the following as root:

lsof | grep deleted

You should find some file that is being deleted, but because the process that created it hasn't closed it, the space is still being used.

Answer 2

what's /dev/sda1 used for? If it's for /var or for '/' which holds /var, you might have logs overflowing, or mailboxes not being cleaned out

Answer 3

you should also try the ps aux to see which is the program who eat a lot of your memory.

Answer 4

We really need to see your partition table. But I conjure the reason that it's filling up is that you're writing tons of junk to /tmp and not cleaning it out, and /tmp is not on its own partition.

Answer 5

Once it has filled, can you, from /, run the command du -h --max-depth=1 This will give you a listing by directory of where the space is being used. Then can you go into the folder which is taking up the most space (/var at a guess) and then do the same. You should be able to figure out where the space is going. I presume this is going to be logs/mail- depending on what the server role is.