Ubuntu server 12.10 /dev/sda1 disk full

Question

My server /dev/sda1 disk full

root@server:/var/www# df 
Filesystem 1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on 
/dev/sda1   48060296  45653236         0 100% / 
udev         8055724        12   8055712   1% /dev 
tmpfs        3225816      1140   3224676   1% /run 
none            5120         0      5120   0% /run/lock 
none         8064536       144   8064392   1% /run/shm 
/dev/sda3  908566268 580691288 281722432  68% /home

Previously when I perform apt-get autoclean & clean I can solve the issue by clear some space. But this time it's not working.

I wish to know which directory under /dev/sda1 but I couldn't check on it. How should I do? Which directory I should look into it and delete those folder?

Having /dev/sda1 full has jammed up MySQL.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You really shouldn't have partitioned your hard drive that way. You partition it that way when you'll have a few system files and applications accessible to all users on one small partition (/) and per-user data on the other very large partition (/home). In other words, it's for standard desktop use.

You have a MySQL server that stores huge database files, which don't fit anywhere in that scheme. In other words, you have a server that's not run by a particular real user, not purely a standard desktop.

You should probably repartition, either to merge the / and /home partitions (the best option to avoid this sort of thing) or to increase the proportion allocated to the / partition.

---

With that out of the way, use BleachBit.

Use BleachBit from the Universe repository:

Turn off MySQL

1. Open up a terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the following:

   sudo service mysql stop
   

Free up some space by removing unneeded and still-packed software and by removing archived log files:

1. Open up a terminal and run the following:

   sudo -i
   apt-get autoremove --purge
   apt-get autoclean
   apt-get clean
   rm -rf /var/cache/apt/archives/*
   find /var/log -name '*.gz' -delete
   

Turn on the Universe repository through Synaptic Package Manager

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Settings menu > Repositories.
3. Make sure Community-maintained free and open-source software (universe) is checked.
4. Click Close.
5. Exit Synaptic Package Manager.

Fix things because you're using an unsupported release (12.10)

1. Only follow this section if you're using a release that's so old that it's no longer supported.

2. Open up a terminal and run the following:

   sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
   

3. Replace everything that has the pattern http://whatever/ubuntu with http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu.

4. Press Ctrl+O, Ctrl+X to save and exit.

Install BleachBit

1. Open up a terminal and run the following:

   sudo -i
   apt-get update
   apt-get install bleachbit
   

Run BleachBit as root

1. Open the applications menu (press Alt+F1).
2. System Tools menu > BleachBit (as root).
3. Clean a bunch of stuff.

Turn on MySQL

1. Open up a terminal and run the following:

   sudo service mysql start
   

Answer 2

Looks like your root filesystem is full (a bit hard to read the output of df - try use df -BM for the disk usage in megabytes rather than bytes). The root filesystem is mounted on /dev/sda1 which refers to a physical device - in this case a hard disk. Directories under / which can take up space are /var and /tmp (and others) - /tmp should clear on a reboot but log files in /var can occupy space

try du -sh /directory_name to get the size of each directory to see which is taking up most space

For example du -sh /var

Answer 3

Please use this answer as a last resort due to the likelyhood that you already done this.

Try clear out any old kernels with sudo apt-get autoremove then check your disk usage again.