"Disk Full" error on a Linux server. How to identify which directory is consuming the most space?
"Disk Full" error on a Linux server. How to identify which directory is consuming the most space?
13901-Aug-2023
Updated on 02-Aug-2023
Aryan Kumar
02-Aug-2023If you are getting a disk full error on a Linux server, you can use the
du
command to identify which directory is consuming the most space. Thedu
command stands for "disk usage", and it will show you the amount of space that is being used by each directory.To use the
du
command, you will need to specify the directory that you want to get the disk usage for. For example, to get the disk usage for the/var
directory, you would run the following command:The
-sh
option tells thedu
command to show the disk usage in human-readable format. The output of the command will show you the total amount of space that is being used by the/var
directory, as well as the amount of space that is being used by each subdirectory.You can use the
du
command to recursively scan a directory tree to find the directories that are consuming the most space. To do this, you will need to use the-r
option. For example, to recursively scan the/var
directory tree, you would run the following command:The output of the command will show you the total amount of space that is being used by the
/var
directory tree, as well as the amount of space that is being used by each subdirectory.Once you have identified the directory that is consuming the most space, you can take steps to reduce the amount of space that it is using. For example, you can delete unnecessary files or move files to a different directory.
Here are some additional tips for identifying which directory is consuming the most space on a Linux server:
du
command with the-h
option. The-h
option will show you the disk usage in a more human-readable format.du
command with the-x
option. The-x
option will exclude directories that are hidden.du
command with the-S
option. The-S
option will summarize the disk usage for all of the directories in a directory tree.