Re: reading an empty directory after reboot is very slow

[Loïc Grenié <loic.grenie@gmail.com>]

2015-04-13 14:39 GMT+02:00 Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>:
> I have some regular directory ~/eftests/tmp, and after a reboot,
> I often check that it is empty (as I remove its contents before
> the reboot): from the ~/eftests directory, I do
>
>   ypig:~/eftests> ll tmp
>
> which corresponds to
>
>   ls -bF --color -l tmp
>
> after alias expansion.
>
> The problem is that this operation is (always?) very slow: something
> like 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds). It has been reproducible
> for several months. The logs show nothing during this operation.
>
> Any idea?

    Maybe the directory is very large (even though its empty). Try

ls -ld tmp.

 and see if the file "tmp" is large. In that case,

cp -a tmp tmp2 && rm -rf tmp && mv tmp2 tmp

   should cure the problem (in 3min20).

> I'm thinking of a possible hardware problem (the machine and the disk
> are 5 years old), but I would have expected some message in the logs
> in such a case. Is there any way to check?

     Possbile but unlikely.

         Hope this helps,

               Loïc