Re: which files took the space
On Thursday 03 March 2016 23:18:59 Adam Wilson wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 04:03:01 +1100 Andrew McGlashan
>
> <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
> > On 4/03/2016 3:07 AM, Adam Wilson wrote:
> > > On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 03:03:53 +1100 Andrew McGlashan
> > >
> > > <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
> > >> It also may have been files in the file system, but where another
> > >> file system mount hides them....
> > >
> > > What does this mean? Mounts overlapping and hiding other mounts?
> > >
> > > Explain, please.
> >
> > Yes, this is more likely to happen to the root file system.
> >
> > Say you have a bunch of files in /boot, but for some reason you have
> > a /boot partition that wasn't mounted when those files were created
> > .... then you mount the /normal/ boot partition over it and now the
> > other files are now hidden from view, but still taking up space.
>
> So you're talking about creating files in an unmounted partition, and
> then mounting it, but since file addition happened when the FS was
> still in an unmounted state, the new files weren't written to the
> journal?
>
> Surely in that case the new files would simply not be registered and
> act as free space (as if they had been deleted)?
No, the mount point, by whatever name exists as a directory on the hard
drive, and creating files in that mount point actually creates the files
and they take up normal space on the drive in that directory. You can
then mount another drive or partition on top of that mount point, which
hides the files, but they are still there, taking up space.
If you need those files to be accessable at that mount point in normal
operation, you must create a different mount point, umount that storage
from that mount point and mount it to the new different point. You will
now see that the files are there, and you can use some file utility (I'm
old old school, so mc is the obvious choice) to move them to the storage
mounted elsewhere temporarily. When that directory is empty, you umount
that storage from its temporary location and remount it back where it
will normally live. Now those files really are there. Problem solved
and you have your drive space back too.
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
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