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On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

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hthi
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On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#1 Post by hthi »

debian 8 64bit
500gb hdd

On the 500gb hdd and without knowing how, free space was gone again. I had some firefox websites opened and watched youtube videos. I noticed some usb wifi card disconnections, which else occurs seldom. I cannot tell if the wifi card took the free space or the low space available made the usb wifi card disconnect.

I was able to open nautilus and found these numbers about /var/log:
Folder /var/log = 88gb
Some files in /var/log:
syslog = 26gb
syslog1 = 21gb
kernlog = 16gb
messages = 16gb

I tried to open some of the listed files. Nautilus said, unknown files and the files got not opened with any program.

I got this command in a previous post I made

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find /var/log -size +10M -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
The matter is, that su nor sudo works when I write the command. Command line says, permission denied. Both su and sudo are enabled. Correct psswds are entered.
How do I run the above command?
Or any command that will delete the files?
Thank you.

Dai_trying
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#2 Post by Dai_trying »

I would boot from a live-cd just to remove the log-files and then as soon as the system boots (after clearing the logs) I would watch the log files to find waht is causing the problem, one way to do this would be to use this command

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sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
and watch in realtime what is going on.

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sunrat
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#3 Post by sunrat »

Pretty much nothing will work when your filesystem is full. Do as Dai-trying suggests and see what is being written to the logs. You could even read the logs from a live CD/USB booted system. Post the messages here if they don't make sense.
It happened to me once. Although I don't recall exactly what was filling the logs, I do remember it was really easy to fix once I knew what was going on.
“ computer users can be divided into 2 categories:
Those who have lost data
...and those who have not lost data YET ”
Remember to BACKUP!

hthi
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#4 Post by hthi »

Thank you.
I looked into /var/log on a 500gb ubuntu 14.04 64bit hdd. Folder /var/log was smaller than 10mb. The kernlog file was smaller than 200kb.

boot from a live-cd
I have previously wanted to boot a live cd to access files on a gnulinux system. I could not find a video about accessing files from a live cd or written instructions. Do you know where I can get instructions?
The 500gb debian 8 64bit hdd is full hdd encrypted. Can you access debian 8 64bit full hdd encrypted files from a live cd?
Is the debian 8 64bit installation cd the live cd?

The fact that command line su and sudo does not work on the 500gb debian 8 64bit hdd shows, that the system may have more errors?
On a 16gb debian 8 64bit usb flash stick the free space also vanished. The gui log in greeter would not display and desktop gui could not start. Instead a command line displayed. I was able to command line log in. Command line sudo would not work. But

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su
then

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find /var/log -size +10M -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
worked.

hthi
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#5 Post by hthi »

Thank you.
A 16gb debian 8 64 usb flash stick had the same vanishing free space error.
It works now.
I turned on the computer. It ran for 9 hours. I opened some websites and youtube videos in firefox. I wrote in command line

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sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
During the 9 hours about 250 times something like this displayed in the command line

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May 17 computer kernel: [xxxxx.xxxxxx] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlan2 OUT= MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00 SRC=yyy.yyy.y.y DST=uuu.u.u.u LEN=36 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2

I have modified some of the values, because I do not know if they are privacy relevant values. There were not many other messages displayed in the command line.
In /var/log files
kern.log
kern.log.1
messages
messages.1
syslog
syslog.1
are getting bigger.
Also
ufw.log
ufw.log.1.

On my linux systems I enable ufw. I do not make any settings about the ufw.
On the desktop I want to use debian 8 64bit main. The usb wifi card is an ar9271. The driver is not in the main repository. I use this free software driver: http://packages.trisquel.info/belenos/a ... e/download
Some times the usb wifi card stops working and the card gets very hot. After removing the usb wifi card and inserting it again, the usb wifi card will work again.
Suggestions? Is it the ar9271 driver?

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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#6 Post by Dai_trying »

Maybe this Debian Wiki page might help.

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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#7 Post by sunrat »

That package is firmware, not driver. The Debian package firmware-atheros supports ar9271 and is available in the non-free section of the repository. ath9k_htc driver is included by default in the kernel.
I doubt that is the main cause of your message flood although it could be related.
You didn't mention what your hardware or Debian version is, so I will assume Jessie. Maybe a newer kernel and more recent firmware package from backports may help. Remove the Trisquel firmware first. There was an issue with ath9k_htc several years ago but it's fixed in the later versions.
“ computer users can be divided into 2 categories:
Those who have lost data
...and those who have not lost data YET ”
Remember to BACKUP!

hthi
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#8 Post by hthi »

Thanks. There must be an error about sudo and su on the 500gb debian 8 64bit system. Turn on computer. Enter full hdd encryption psswd. Enter log in data.
If I command line

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sudo find /var/log -size +10M -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
the I get a series of 'permission denied messages.

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su
will not authenticate after entering adm passwd.

On the 16gb debian 8 64bit flash stick I turn on the computer. Enter full hdd encryption passwd. Enter greeter log in data. The gui system starts. I start a terminal. If I command line

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sudo find /var/log -size +10M -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
it works.

I managed to get the 500gb debian 8 64bit system working this way
Turn on computer.
Enter full hdd encryption psswd.
Press ctrl + alt + f2.
Enter log in data.

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cd /var/log

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ls

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sudo rm messages

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cd

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sudo poweroff.
After turning on the computer, the gui system works.
I do not know why su does not work and sudo does.
I doubt that is the main cause
I agreed. It is rather something occurs and free space is occupied by files in /var/log in a short time span.

ruffwoof
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#9 Post by ruffwoof »

wizard10000 wrote:My favorite tool for finding out where all your disk space went is ncdu. ncurses interface so you don't need a GUI and it's about 50 times faster than find :)
Thanks. Wasn't aware of ncdu. You're a wiz :)

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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#10 Post by milomak »

you should not start 2 threads for the same issue though - http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=133111
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hthi
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Re: On 500gb hdd, free space gone again

#11 Post by hthi »

On the 500gb hdd debian 8 64bit main mate it is uncertain, what is going on about the /var/log files. I did not delete further files in /var/log. Still about 30gb of files got deleted in the folder. Increasing the system's free space to 80gb. Now the size of /var/log is 26mb.

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