/var folder taking too much space

[V3King]

Hello,

I am having issues with my server because of storage running out and found that /var is taking almost 14GB. var/log is taking around 3GB and var/lib is taking around 6GB.

Could someone please help me how to clean it up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SysSachin]

Hello,
First you have to check which exact log file taking space.Also, check which file/directory taking space under /var/lib using the command "du -sch *"

Please check and update here with file/directory name so that I can assist you.

 

[V3King]

Hello,
First, you have to check which exact log file taking space.Also, check which file/directory taking space under /var/lib using the command "du -sch *"

Please check and update here with file/directory name so that I can assist you.

Hello,

Thank you so much for the quick response.

I used the command you provided and here is the output for both var/log and var/lib:

Output of var/log:

4.0K    audit
160K    background
172K    bandwidth
8.0K    boot.log
775M    btmp
760M    btmp-20161201
298M    chkservd.log
12K     ConsoleKit
812K    cron
8.9M    cron-20161127
8.9M    cron-20161204
9.4M    cron-20161211
9.9M    cron-20161218
744K    dcpumon
24K     dmesg
24K     dmesg.old
192K    dracut.log
30M     exim_mainlog
3.6M    exim_mainlog-20161127.gz
3.3M    exim_mainlog-20161204.gz
3.2M    exim_mainlog-20161211.gz
3.3M    exim_mainlog-20161218.gz
0       exim_paniclog
4.0K    exim_paniclog-20161127.gz
4.0K    exim_paniclog-20161204.gz
4.0K    exim_paniclog-20161211.gz
4.0K    exim_paniclog-20161218.gz
308K    exim_rejectlog
12K     exim_rejectlog-20161127.gz
8.0K    exim_rejectlog-20161204.gz
20K     exim_rejectlog-20161211.gz
16K     exim_rejectlog-20161218.gz
12K     lastlog
420K    maillog
18M     maillog-20161127
16M     maillog-20161204
16M     maillog-20161211
15M     maillog-20161218
5.1M    messages
45M     messages-20161127
49M     messages-20161204
54M     messages-20161211
64M     messages-20161218
4.0K    ntpstats
32K     prelink
17M     sa
11M     secure
104M    secure-20161127
114M    secure-20161204
117M    secure-20161211
143M    secure-20161218
0       spooler
0       spooler-20161127
0       spooler-20161204
0       spooler-20161211
0       spooler-20161218
4.2M    ul_load_stats
28K     wtmp
4.0K    xferlog.offset
4.0K    xferlog.offsetftpsep
4.0K    yum.log
2.7G    total

Output for var/lib:

20K     alternatives
20K     authconfig
8.0K    dbus
8.0K    dhclient
16K     dovecot
4.0K    fprint
4.0K    games
4.0K    logrotate.status
4.0K    misc
24M     mlocate
5.6G    mysql
8.0K    ntp
8.0K    plymouth
28K     polkit-1
12K     prelink
4.0K    random-seed
132K    readahead
127M    rpm
4.0K    rsyslog
6.0M    spamassassin
12K     stateless
8.0K    udev
18M     yum
5.7G    total

 

[SysSachin]

Thanks for the update.

It's seems that your mysql directory is using 5.6GB disk space on your server. You can remove old logs from your /var/log directory or you can move your mysql directory to other partition to make free space on /var partition

If you want to move your mysql directory to any other partition then you can try with following steps.

You can symlinking the old /var/lib/mysql to the new location

ln -s /home/var_mysql/mysql /var/lib/mysql

First make a full mysqldump file

mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > /home/alldatabases.sql.gz

Uncheck monitor in WHM > Service Manager for Mysql and save the area and stop mysql service.

Make the directory for MySQL in /home, move it and symlink it:

mkdir /home/var_mysql
mv /var/lib/mysql /home/var_mysql
chown -R mysql:mysql /home/var_mysql/mysql
ln -s /home/var_mysql/mysql /var/lib/mysql
/etc/init.d/mysql start

Re-check monitor in WHM > Service Manager for MySQL and save the area

If anything goes wrong, you have the full mysqldump backup.

 

[V3King]

Thanks for the update.

It's seems that your mysql directory is using 5.6GB disk space on your server. You can remove old logs from your /var/log directory or you can move your mysql directory to other partition to make free space on /var partition

If you want to move your mysql directory to any other partition then you can try with following steps.

You can symlinking the old /var/lib/mysql to the new location

ln -s /home/var_mysql/mysql /var/lib/mysql

First make a full mysqldump file

mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > /home/alldatabases.sql.gz

Uncheck monitor in WHM > Service Manager for Mysql and save the area and stop mysql service.

Make the directory for MySQL in /home, move it and symlink it:

mkdir /home/var_mysql
mv /var/lib/mysql /home/var_mysql
chown -R mysql:mysql /home/var_mysql/mysql
ln -s /home/var_mysql/mysql /var/lib/mysql
/etc/init.d/mysql start

Re-check monitor in WHM > Service Manager for MySQL and save the area

If anything goes wrong, you have the full mysqldump backup.

Can you please tell me how to clean up logs from var/log folder? It would be a great help.

 

[ChrisI]

Hello!

cPanel logs are managed through the cPanel Log Rotation Configuration interface.

cPanel Log Rotation Configuration - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

You can also manage the size threshold for those under Tweak Settings.

Tweak Settings - Stats and Logs - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

For logs that aren't managed there, you will likely need to clear those out or remove them manually. This is also a good page for a reference on that as well.

How to Clean Unmanaged Log Files - cPanel Knowledge Base - cPanel Documentation