/var with capacity -1%

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2008 at 09:17:03AM +0200, Ingeborg Hellemo wrote:
> 
> eugen at kuzbass.ru said:
> > > It is possible to have files that are open and held by processes on
> > > the filesystem that are no longer listed. If you kill the offending
> L > process the space will be freed up.
> > 
> > "lsof +aL1 <file_system>" shows unlinked open files on the specified file
> > system (quoting its man page). 
> 
> 
> If you read my first mail you will see that this is not a case of overfull 
> /var (101% used) and a need to free space. Something is wrong with either the 
> filesystem or df(1) since it claims that I am using a negative amount of 
> disk-blocks.
> 
> There are no unlinked open files on /var, and I fail to understand how they 
> could have explained the output of df(1)

Did you perform the lsof or fstat commands recommended?  We understand
you fail to understand how open fds to files which were removed could
cause what you're seeing -- you'll have to trust us.  Can you do that?

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                    jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                           http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                      Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.                  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |