When I try to create a new text file on my server, via FTP, I get an error that the destination drive / disk is full.
This is not true. I have at least 3-4 GB of space left.
How can this be? Have not had this problem before, until today.
I'm pretty new to Linux, and am therefore grateful for all the help I can get, to resolve this.
OS: Mandriva Linux 2010.2
Are you sure you have enough space in that particular partition, though? If you're not familiar with linux, it may not be going where you think it does. df -h.
Also, you may be out of inodes instead. Without these filesystem structures, you cannot create files.
df -i
The usual reason for this to happen is: a process writes into a file. This file is being deleted to free up some space, but: as long as the process doesn't release this file it will not be unlinked and hence still use space.
I'd suggest you use the strace utility to find this process and its file, then start/stop the process if possible. As this is a little tricky and you say you are new to Unix the best advise i can give you is: reboot the system, because this will have the same effect (stopping/starting the process).
I hope this helps.
bakunin
Please post what you typed and the exact error message.
Try logging in manually with ftp and issuing the ftp command PWD . Then compare this with the home directory of the account you are logging in from. Then check the free space relative to that directory.
It is possible to set up ftp with a false root. Has your ftp account been set up that way?
strace is probably overkill, and not the right tool for the job. Try lsof.