π ~1 min read
Table of contents
Symptom & Impact
Applications fail to write data, logs stop updating, and critical daemons may crash.
Environment & Reproduction
Common on long-lived hosts with uncontrolled logs, caches, backups, or temp files.
Root Cause Analysis
Disk consumption exceeds available root partition capacity and blocks filesystem writes.
Quick Triage
Identify largest directories and immediate reclaim candidates without deleting required data.
Step-by-Step Diagnosis
Use filesystem and inode usage reports to locate top space consumers.
Solution – Primary Fix
Free space safely, rotate logs, purge caches, and extend storage if necessary.
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Solution – Alternative Approaches
Temporarily relocate non-critical data to attached storage for rapid stabilization.
Verification & Acceptance Criteria
Sustained free space thresholds are restored and impacted services return to normal.
Rollback Plan
Recover mistakenly removed data from snapshots or backup archives.
Prevention & Hardening
Implement retention policies, alerting, and periodic storage housekeeping tasks.
Related Errors & Cross-Refs
Related errors include no space left on device and journal write failures.
Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
View all Ubuntu 14.04 LTS tutorials on the Tutorials Hub β
Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.
References & Further Reading
Consult Ubuntu storage management and logrotate best practices.
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