Subject: enormously growing /dev
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Frank B. Scholl <frank.b.scholl@web.de>
List: current-users
Date: 09/10/2004 13:59:27
hi all,

i wanted to share an experience i made lately with a system i have running just for see how -current develops. don't blame me for the way to large partition sizes i am pasting afterwards, i know its insecure, could be done better an all your arguments against such a layout apply :) but its really that i dont care for anything on that machine, it's, as i said, for testing and nothing else.

so now to the problem:  every two days or so, my /dev is growing. at the moment it has a size of 51g. it will grow until the partition is growded and than, of course, the machine wont be able to start any new program, because its not even space left for writing pids (well, thats one of the reasons why one _should_ urgently have some more partitioning, but it doesnt change the fact that /dev is large and should not be). the partition has ffsv2 on it.

to give you an example: cd /; du -sh *; follows:

	1.0K    altroot
	1.2M    bin
	53K     boot
	51G     dev
	3.0M    etc
	12G     home
	16K     kern
	2.4M    lib
	54K     libexec
	0B      metalog
	1.0K    mnt
	2.5M    netbsd
	2.5M    netbsd.archimedes
	7.3M    netbsd.generic
	1.0K    proc
	2.4M    rescue
	5.3M    root
	3.0M    sbin
	1.0K    stand
	3.0K    tmp
	3.8G    usr	
	18M     var

a day ago, i did not know which device that was. i digged a bit and remarked, that /dev/sd0 is 51g in size. its the device from a occassionally used usb enclosed harddrive. the device is plugged out since, hm, lets say 3 days, but even with a reboot in between, something writes to that device although it is not there anymore. if i MAKEDEV all devices from new, well, the problem seems to be solved at first, but even if i do not plug in my harddisk, sd0 gets large again.

for me this is just strange. for you maybe, too. but if not, do you have a good idea what i could do? a new current update didnt help, btw.

thx & rgds,

frank

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