Unable to clear up tmp

Question

I had a bunch of files in /tmp that I cleared up by doing $ rm -rf ./tmp/*. However, I'm still unable to 'clear' that information, even after a reset. Here is what I have now:

$ cd Av-bash: cannot create temp file for here-document: No space left on device
$ df -i
df: no file systems processed

I should have roughly 400GB free space on this machine. How can I clear up this space, what do I need to do so that I can create temp files once again? And why isn't df -i returning anything?

The distribution I'm using is:

Linux version 3.13.0-29-generic (buildd@toyol) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #53-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 4 21:00:20 UTC 2014

jlliagre · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-21T23:06:23.127

3

rm doesn't clear files, it unlinks them. If there were files in /tmp open by some processes that are still running, their space hasn't been released. One way to fix the issue is to restart these applications if you can identify them. A simpler workaround is to reboot your OS.

There can be a different source of a /tmp full situation. If /tmp is based on tmpfs, you might just be out of virtual memory.

edited Feb 21 '16 at 23:06

answered Feb 21 '16 at 19:41

jlliagre

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They should also use `lsof -n | grep -i delet` releated to your good suggestion about deleted files that were in use. – Aaron Feb 21 '16 at 19:58
Another good answer for this at http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/68523/find-and-remove-large-files-that-are-open-but-have-been-deleted – Tom Harrison Jr Feb 21 '16 at 20:13
Linux Distribution added in the question. It's ubuntu. – David542 Feb 21 '16 at 22:24

score -2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '16 at 07:40

-2

you can use following command which will remove everything from /tmp directory which were last modified before 24 hours.

tmpwatch --mtime --all 24 /tmp

answered Feb 22 '16 at 07:40

ASEveryWhere Technologies

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I see no evidence suggesting this would help at all. – kasperd Feb 22 '16 at 10:47
please see the redhat archive page, link is gien below https://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-list/2004-January/msg04730.html – ASEveryWhere Technologies Feb 23 '16 at 09:21
How does that differ from what was tried already? – kasperd Feb 23 '16 at 09:28
one problem has many solutions, so i suggested one of them !! – ASEveryWhere Technologies Feb 23 '16 at 12:18
Except what you have provided is **not** one of the solutions for the problem described in the question. Pay close attention to what was already tried, and why it did not work. – kasperd Feb 23 '16 at 12:41

Unable to clear up tmp

2 Answers2