No space on device

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

hi all,

while searching solution to an error, i found this forum and i have just joined the forum.

i am using Unix and getting the following error.
kindly help to resolve.

-bash: cannot create temp file for here-document: No space left on device

regards

2

Hello kkm,

Welcome to forums, error itself is self explanatory, check your current path by doing pwd command and check it's file system seems it is 100% filled now, you may need to either increase its capacity or clean OLD junk log or un-necessary files(be careful before deleting any files though make sure you are NOT deleting anything important).

Thanks,
R. Singh

3

hi Raj
thanks for reply.
how to check file system? in my folders i cleared all that don't need. but still same problem. and where to remove log files? kindly explain, i am new to this particular system.
Regards

4

Hello kkm,

You haven't mentioned which O.S you are using? In case you are on *NIX system you could use uname -a command to check O.S complete details. Then you could check your file system's complete details by df command which tells how much capacity system is having. For clearing the file you should NEVER delete your actual/working data/Binaries you should only delete junk or log files(it depends on your software where they store it, I am not sure about it since you haven't mentioned any details).

You could use command:

find your_file_system_which_has_issues  -type f -size +500M

Above will give you all the files which are more than 500 MB size then you could take decision which ones are junk files(but again fair warning be very careful on *NIX systems we DO NOT have recycle bin so be very careful before deleting anything too). Also you could hit THANKS button at left of each post to anyone if you feel post is useful to you too, cheers and enjoy learning.

NOTE: I have used 500M in find command you could change size too in that command in case you DO NOT see any 500 MB size file in your system.

Thanks,
R. Singh

1 Like
5

hi
i checked with "uname -a", found that its Linux OS.
when i run 'df' command it gives files with usage details etc as copied below:

devtmpfs                                     65818872            12     65818860   1% /dev
tmpfs                                        65829936             0     65829936   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                        65829936       4191092     61638844   7% /run
/dev/sda31                                   45034896      44819656            0 100% /
tmpfs                                        65829936             0     65829936   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda11                                     289293         86483       187450  32% /boot
/dev/sda61                                  412715164      15535312    376192104   4% /data1
10.149.0.13:/mnt/home3                   161048251392        397312 161047854080   1% /home3
10.149.0.13:/mnt/acquisition             202904036352  166866625536  36037410816  83% /external/rdss/acquisitions
10.149.0.13:/mnt/pkg                       2134471680    1775365120    359106560  84% /pkg
10.149.0.13:/mnt/work                    161048263680  130524639232  30523624448  82% /work
10.149.0.13:/mnt/home                    161048251392  132652876800  28395374592  83% /home
10.149.0.13:/mnt/home2                   161048251392    2309523456 158738727936   2% /home2
10.149.0.13:/mnt/app_scratch              21461824512   14054920192   7406904320  66% /app_scratch
10.149.0.13:/mnt/work2                   107361168384   87112799232  20248369152  82% /work2
tmpfs                                        13165988             0     13165988   0% /run/user/485
10.13.0.76@o2ib:10.13.0.77@o2ib:/lustre 1977261490304 1324922745740 632368951824  68% /lustre
tmpfs                                        13165988             0     13165988   0% /run/user/236660

i am not sure which folder belongs to me, as this is a common system by University to all students, So not sure if all folders are working in background 'for all' or 'for me only'.???

6

Hello kkm,

I could see / is 100% filled. You could use command:

find / -type f -size +20M

You could change the size of files in command and then you could check with your mates which things could be deleted(again DO NOT delete anything out of the box of Binaries), that you folks have to decide which things should be removed(look for app logs etc if they are not getting cleaned).

Thanks,
R. Singh

7
Moderator comments were removed during original forum migration.
1 Like
8

The find command must stay on the file system, otherwise it would run for *ages*.
Also it's a good idea to search for recently modified files

find / -xdev -type f -size +10000 -mtime -30

BTW often /tmp has filled up, and you can do a quick look there first. (Dito /var/tmp)

1 Like
9

I'd seriously doubt that a university host would run out of its root file system space, not with the IT depts that your normally would expect in such environment - so I'd suspect you're chroot ed, and you should search for your own large files.

1 Like
10

hi
thanks for reply.
even after I check a folder is 100% used, I am not sure how to open it and delete any files. Unless they are created by me, I cant say, if they are generated, created by system or someone..

Anyway, just an update. I just found its working now, I think the University admins had done some fix after I sent mail to them. but no information to me, so far.