Re: var very full

> On Sunday 08 October 2006 09:06, radhika wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I am running netbsd 3.0 on i386.
>> I  notice var is almost 50% of my 14G.
>> In var I noticed a backups directory with etc, and var in it.
>> What is the backups being used for?
>> How can I clean up var ie. remove old files without breaking anything.
>>
>> thanks,
>> Radhika
>
> /var/backups is used by /etc/security (see security.conf(5)) for more
> details.
> Basically, it's used to keep copies of vital files if they have changed.
> This should not be that large and I personally do not recommend deleting
> it.
> Especially considering we're talking about a 14G drive here and not
> something
> smaller than a gig where the few megs you would recover would really
> matter.
>
> You can try cleaning up /var/tmp  with
> find /var/tmp -atime +3 -exec rm {} \;
>
> That will delete any files not access within three days.  You can also
> delete
> old log files (those with .gz in /var/logs) that you don't need anymore.
>
> But the big thing is to locate where the space is going,  Try "du -k |
> sort -rn | head" for a good idea of where you should be looking.  The
> larger
> the directory or file the more you should look closely at it and see
> what's
> happening.  Once you know what is taking up the space, you will have a
> better
> idea of how to fix it and possibly prevent it from recurring.
>
> -Kevin
>

Thanks! I will take a look. And the drive is 14M, (Not Gigs as I had
mentioned in error), which is why the cause for concern. But thanks for
the explanation, it makes more sense now.

Radhika
-- 
It is all a matter of perspective. You choose your view by choosing where
to stand.
Larry Wall
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