Re: KCORE in /proc

On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 12:11:07AM +1100, Gilbert Rehling wrote:
> Hello to all.
>                 I have two servers both with the same problem.
> Both seem to have run out of space on the / directory
> 1 system has 256 mb of space for the / and the 2nd has 497 mb for the /
> 
> On inspection I found that on both systems the /proc/kcore to be rather
> large.
> On the 1st its 402657280 and 939528192 on the 2nd.
> I did manage to free up some space on the second system by uninstalling a
> heap of programs, but after rebooting the free space disappeared again.
> 
> I noticed that the kcore file is actually a linked file, but from where?
> /dev??
> 
> Also any program that requires free space there won't run. I can access via
> webmin, and terminal, but Xwindows will no longer start.
> 
> Can anyone please help me with this and or point me to some data about the
> kcore.
> My guess is that this is the kernel  core file.
> 
> My 7.3 machine only shows 131 mb used on the / but its /proc/kcore file is
> 251645952
> 
> So, any explanation on this phenomena would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks in advance for any help and I hope this proves to be a usefull
> question.
> 
> Gilbert R
> 
> [email protected]
I don't think kcore is the problem. The files in /proc are not really
files. They are content that the kernal provides on request. For
example on my machine:
[akonstam@Moof proc]$ ls -l kcore
-r--------    1 root     root     145113088 Feb 24 09:20 kcore
[akonstam@Moof proc]$ du -s kcore  
0 kcore
So you see kcore really does not take up space.
-- 
-------------------------------------------
Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
715 Stadium Dr.
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200

telephone: (210)-999-7484
email:[email protected]