Re: / is suddenly 100% used

[Brian Frederick Kimball <bfk@footbag.org>]

Michael P. Soulier wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 03, 2001 at 01:23:02AM -0800, kmself@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> 
> > ***NEVER*** delete large files on an impacted filesystem, *unless* you
> > first zero them out, *and* insure nothing's accessing them:
> 
>     Isn't that a flaw in the system then?

No, it's a feature. :-)

> I can understand if a process still
> has the file open, but the file should be flagged for deletion.

That's exactly what happens.  The file is "flagged for deletion" and
then is actually deleted when the process closes the file.

kmself's point is that the file isn't deleted until the process stops
using it.  If you rm the file first, you won't know which process is
keeping the disk space occupied by using the file.

> You should
> never be able to permanently damage the filesystem in this way.If you reboot
> the machine, will the space be properlly deallocated?

The fs isn't permanently or even temporarily damaged.  If you think
about it, this is the only sane way to handle deleting files that
processes are still using.


		brian