Originally posted by: geralds34ca

We have one LPAR, where the root file system ( /) is always growing slightly.  Most of out LPARS have a 2GB / fs, but this particular LPAR has grown to 8GB.

Nothing is obviously consuming the space, as a normal user file.  Could it be the /proc directory?

We are on AIX 7.1 TL3 SP3

Filesystem    GB blocks      Free %Used    Iused %Iused Mounted on
/dev/hd4           8.03      0.50   94%     3857     3% /
/dev/hd2           4.31      0.58   87%    85770    35% /usr
/dev/hd9var        1.53      0.63   59%    10311     7% /var
/dev/hd3           0.56      0.53    6%      872     1% /tmp
/dev/hd1           0.75      0.44   42%     4654     5% /home
/proc                 -         -    -         -     -  /proc
/dev/hd10opt       0.47      0.36   25%     3301     4% /opt
/dev/livedump      0.25      0.25    1%        4     1% /var/adm/ras/livedump

/:AIXLPAR#du -sm /proc
du: /proc/13959264: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/17760478: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/21823524: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/22085778: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/24707288/fd/15: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/29294654: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/37552292: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/37945462: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/38600870: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/42991746: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/46596312: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/49414280: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/53215320: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/60424246: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/61079736: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/63570090: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/1507786: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/1966590: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/2425204: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/3342738: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/4587910: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/9175430: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/9306388: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/10354950: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
du: /proc/14287220: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
39929.10        /proc

Any suggestions?

Originally posted by: The_Doctor

It should be simple, but never say never...... here's a starter:

• cd /      # change PWD to /
• ls -al    # list all the files & directories at the / level
•           # look for any large files in / ..... probably won't find any, but ?
•           # look for ANY directory that is NOT a mounted filesystem & start there:
•           #    aka ignore the directories that you listed as your mounted filesystems:
•           #           /usr
•           #           /var
•           #           /tmp
•           #           /home
•           #           /opt

99% of the time you'll find a directory like "/ora" or "/backup" or "/db" in your "/" filesystem & the culprit consuming all the space is buried in there.

Originally posted by: geralds34ca

Search for all directories off the root as;

/:AIXLPAR#ls -lart | grep drw

and looked at the size of the directories for everything that was not a file system, could not find the missing space.

Tempted to umount, varyoff everything but rootvg, and do a "ls -laR", to see what is hidden.

Originally posted by: AncientAIXer

/proc is a virtual directory.  The file objects there are built as the system needs them.  The numbered directories correspond to a PID and will be created and removed as processes start and stop.

Use:

find / -xdev -type f -size {n}

to see if there are any large files in /.  The xdev flag will traverse only that filesystem.  The size flag is in 512K blocks.  I would start fairly large, maybe 100 Mb or 200 blocks, and scale down as needed.

Originally posted by: geralds34ca

Ran the find as,

find / -xdev -type f -print > /tmp/rootfile.txt

Reviewing the output showed files stored in a directory, that was supposed to be used for an NFS mount point.  The external server has been up and down lately, so files must have been written locally instead of the on the NFS share.

Thanks for suggesting the -xdev option!