Ubuntu 14.04 LTS /var Full from Log Growth Breaks Services

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Critical services fail to write state and crash when /var runs out of space.

Environment & Reproduction

Occurs on small root volumes with verbose logging or stalled logrotate cycles.

Root Cause Analysis

Unbounded log files and retained package caches consume /var capacity over time.

Quick Triage

Run df, du top consumers, and identify active deleted files using lsof.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Map high-growth paths in /var/log, /var/lib, and package cache directories.

Solution – Primary Fix

Purge obsolete logs and caches, restart affected daemons, and correct rotation policy.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Extend filesystem, move heavy paths to separate volume, or centralize logging.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Adequate free space restored and services remain stable through workload cycle.

Rollback Plan

Recover archived logs from backups if retention cleanup removed needed records.

Prevention & Hardening

Set storage alerts, enforce logrotate policies, and tune application verbosity.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Linked with inode exhaustion, apt lock failures, and database write errors.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

View all Ubuntu 14.04 LTS tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

logrotate docs, Linux disk usage diagnostics, and Ubuntu maintenance best practices.