Doesn't ext[2,3,4] reserve 5% of the space on the disc for this very reason?
This can be adjusted with tune2fs -m /dev/sda1
You can check the reserved blocks with sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sda1 | grep 'Reserved block count'
All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
611–620 of 715 posts
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#612I have a dual-boot laptop with windows and linux, and use the ntfs partition to share data between them Recently, I extracted a large archive with Linux on the ntfs, and the partition was full Then Windows did not start anymore Linux would only mount the partition as read-only, because it was marked dirty after the failed start. Finally I found a tool to reset the mark, and delete the files. Now Windows starts again,…
> Finally I found a tool to reset the mark, and delete the files. fsck?
No, ntfsfix
I do not think linux fsck works on ntfs
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perfect example of the tragedy of the commons. If individuals don't create these balloon files then they won't be able to use the file server when they need it, yet by creating these balloon files the collective action depletes the shared resource of its main function.
This is similar to how some government agencies retain their budgets. At the end of the budget period they've only spent 80% of their allocated budget, so they throw out a bunch of perfectly good equipment/furniture/etc. and order new stuff so that their budget doesn't get cut the following year, rather than accepting that maybe they were over-budgeted to begin with. Rinse, repeat, thus continuing the cycle of wastin…
This is similar to how some university departments retain their budgets.
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is similar to how some government agencies retain their budgets. At the end of the budget period they've only spent 80% of their allocated budget, so they throw out a bunch of perfectly good equipment/furniture/etc. and order new stuff so that their budget doesn't get cut the following year, rather than accepting that maybe they were over-budgeted to begin with. Rinse, repeat, thus continuing the cycle of wastin…
Years ago I worked as a research assistant for a university. One day, my boss (a professor) pulled me aside for an impromptu meeting. "I have $5000 left in a research grant I need to spend this week or else it's gone forever – do you have any ideas of what I should spend it on?" Unfortunately I couldn't think of much. I suggested maybe we buy some more computers with it but I'm sure he'd already thought of that himse…
Could you order conference tickets or something similar that allows free cancelations in the future? In my previous job, we did this to carry over training budgets.
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep! The problem happens when you divide the safety buffer up in the first place. Safety buffers demand to be shared, when one part does not use all of its safety margin you want to transfer that to another system. Another surprising place where this happens is project scheduling. We budget time for each individual step of a project based on our guess of a 90% or 95% success rate, then our "old-timers' experience" ki…
Have you ever thought of just accepting that you can't predict how long a project will take to complete? It's a revelation. You get to have some hard conversations with other managers. But in the end everyone finds it easier to deal with "it'll be ready when it's ready" rather than endless missed deadlines and overruns.
In my experience people vastly prefer their fantasies to reality.
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of the reserve tank toggle on some motorcycles. When you run out of gas, you switch the toggle and drive directly to a gas station.
buying a translucent gas tank has been one of the best investments I've made into my bike.
I bet that gets fun in a hurry in the event of a collision.
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somebody will notify you. If the service is just for yourself, you don't need monitoring at all.
Yes, yes, but they will notify you after your service is down (because that's when they notice), in part thanks to a spacer file that eats up available disk space without being of any use. A monitoring service would notify you before your service is down, users grab pitchforks and start looking for torches. I understand the benefit to be able to quickly delete some file to be able to run some command that would need…
This is an additional safety net. It's like doing backups. Of course you should replace your hard drive before the other drive breaks down, but you want to have a backup in case your server burns down.
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#618In the mid nineties I worked in a research institute. There was a large shared Novell drive which was always on the verge of full. Almost every day we were asked to clean up our files as much as possible. There were no disc quota for some reason. One day I was working with my colleague and when the fileserver was full he went to a project folder and removed a file called balloon.txt which immediately freed up a few p…
Perfect example of the tragedy of the commons. If individuals don't create these balloon files then they won't be able to use the file server when they need it, yet by creating these balloon files the collective action depletes the shared resource of its main function.
> Perfect example of the tragedy of the commons.
More like perverse incentives.
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#619I've seen in Cockroach db documents last month : https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/v20.2/cockroach-debug-bal...
This technique even has a name : ballast file
Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
One argument in favor of it is the 8GB file may cause a runaway process to crash, leaving you without it continuing to chew up space and able to recover. A second argument is it's not opened by any process. One problem I've had fixing disk full errors was figuring out which process still had a file open. (For any POSIX noobs: the space occupied by a file is controlled by its inode. Deleting a file "unlinks" the inode…
lsof
Except that you probably don't realize that a process had it open until after you deleted it.