On Sat, 16 Aug 2008, Ward Poelmans wrote: > On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 07:50, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > the difference between du and df is about 640 - 188 = 452 MB. > > and "df" is showing that my root is full 2.4 times more than "du". > > > > which one is the correct one? I've another server that this > > difference is about 7 GiG and on that server root is 80% full. The > > type of partition is ext3. > > Next to the difference due journaling etc, there is one important > difference between du en df: > deleted files held open by a running process. du doesn't count these > files, df does. > You can find those files with lsof | grep "deleted". Try closing the > process with deleted files and suddenly your du en df will give the > same free diskspace. > Ofcourse, a reboot does also the trick. > > Ward
Actually, there is one more way to hide a file from du If there is a file in the /var directory *BEFORE* the /var partition is mounted onto the directory, then du won't find it, but df will know about the space it is using. You will probably need to boot from a live CD of some sort to be able to umount the partitions and check the underlying directory, but it might be worth it there is still space unaccounted for after a reboot. -- Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first: http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
