Bonno Bloksma wrote: > The /var/log/syslog file was over 4GB large. I deleted it using a > simple rm /var/log/syslog command and the file is indeed no longer > there.
As others have noted simply removing the file only removes it from the directory. It will NOT free up the disk space until the last file handle to it is closed. The filesystem is effectively a garbage collection system and does reference counting. Only when the reference count goes to zero will the block space be freed. In the future instead of removing a file that you want to be freed immediately consider truncating it instead. By truncating the file it does not matter if there are other handles to it. The filesystem will immediately free the storage associated with it. The running syslogd in this case will continue to write to the same file handle. root@example:~# : >/var/log/syslog I use ":" (aka "true") because historically a file redirection without a command associated with it was not guaranteed portable. Probably doesn't matter today. Just one of my quirks now. Bob
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