Re: Problem with /var
Eben King <eben@gmx.us> wrote:
>
>
> On 3/6/25 20:24, Maureen Thomas wrote:
> > I am running Debian 12 fulled updated. I keep getting a message saying
> > that my /var is almost full. What can I safely delete to make more room
> > for it.
>
> First, find out where the space is being used. Something like baobab
> might be useful. It might the apt cache directory, or some gigantic log
> file, or some file you placed there and forgot.
One of the major users of space in /var is the systemd journal files.
Here's the sizes of /var subdirectories on my laptop:-
root@t470# du -sm *
5 backups
176 cache
1 ipp-usb
311 lib
1 local
0 lock
2586 log
1 mail
4 opt
0 run
8 spool
1 tmp
7 www
/var/log (which is where systemd puts its log files) is by far the
biggest. If you then go and look in /var/log you will almost certainly
find that nearly all the spoace sonsumed is in /var/log/journal, the
systemd journal files.
THe systemd journal file defaults for length of time they are kept and
maximum size etc. are OK[ish] for systems with lots of disk space but
are far too large for smaller systems.
On systems I have with limited space I modify /etc/systemd/journald.conf
to reduce disk usage, I set the SystemMaxUse and MaxRetentionSec
parameters.
--
Chris Green
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