var/log size 52.6 GB

Question

My /var/log folder is occupying 52.6 GB of space. When I ran this command inside log la -la then I got this as output

ls -la
total 48211524
drwxrwxr-x  13 root              syslog                 4096 Mar  9 17:11 .
drwxr-xr-x  14 root              root                   4096 Feb 10 00:26 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  30182 Mar  7 18:13 alternatives.log
-rw-r-----   1 root              adm                    1965 Mar  9 17:15 apport.log
drwxr-xr-x   2 root              root                   4096 Mar  8 00:18 apt
-rw-r-----   1 syslog            adm                   99276 Mar  9 22:50 auth.log
-rw-------   1 root              root                  51448 Mar  9 22:40 boot.log
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                 104003 Feb 10 00:17 bootstrap.log
-rw-rw----   1 root              utmp                      0 Feb 10 00:17 btmp
drwxr-xr-x   2 root              root                   4096 Mar  5 03:43 cups
drwxr-xr-x   2 root              root                   4096 Jan 20 03:17 dist-upgrade
-rw-r--r--   1 root              adm                   85179 Mar  9 22:40 dmesg
-rw-r--r--   1 root              adm                   85397 Mar  8 16:02 dmesg.0
-rw-r--r--   1 root              adm                   21652 Mar  8 15:22 dmesg.1.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root              adm                   21621 Mar  7 23:26 dmesg.2.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root              adm                   21582 Mar  5 04:04 dmesg.3.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root              adm                   21539 Mar  5 03:43 dmesg.4.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                1180141 Mar  8 00:18 dpkg.log
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  32032 Mar  5 03:41 faillog
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  11303 Mar  7 18:13 fontconfig.log
drwx--x--x   2 root              gdm                    4096 Nov 10 17:57 gdm3
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                   2242 Mar  9 22:40 gpu-manager.log
-rw-rw-r--   1 root              heisenbug              2256 Mar  9 22:50 gpu-manager-switch.log
drwxr-xr-x   3 root              root                   4096 Feb 10 00:19 hp
drwxrwxr-x   2 root              root                   4096 Mar  5 03:41 installer
drwxr-sr-x+  3 root              systemd-journal        4096 Mar  5 03:42 journal
-rw-r-----   1 syslog            adm                 1205666 Mar  9 22:50 kern.log
-rw-rw-r--   1 root              utmp                 292292 Mar  5 03:41 lastlog
drwxr-xr-x   2 root              root                   4096 Sep  5  2019 openvpn
drwx------   2 root              root                   4096 Feb 10 00:17 private
drwx------   2 speech-dispatcher root                   4096 Jan 19  2020 speech-dispatcher
-rw-r-----   1 syslog            adm             49365204992 Mar  9 23:01 syslog
-rw-------   1 root              root                      0 Feb 10 00:17 ubuntu-advantage.log
drwxr-x---   2 root              adm                    4096 Mar  6 09:59 unattended-upgrades
-rw-rw-r--   1 root              utmp                   8448 Mar  9 17:11 wtmp
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  52037 Mar  9 21:33 Xorg.0.log
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  63900 Mar  9 03:16 Xorg.0.log.old
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  72071 Mar  9 22:50 Xorg.1.log
-rw-r--r--   1 root              root                  72929 Mar  9 03:16 Xorg.1.log.old

I dont know where lies the issue but this line

-rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 49365204992 Mar 9 23:01 syslog

here the number seems unusually big than others.

I can't even see which file exactly is taking soo much space

Do you have a desktop installed? You can try to use the application "Filelight" to get a graphical representation of the size of folders and files. — Nmath, Mar 09 '21 at 18:04
But there should not be log files of this size, right? Also, I think I should not delete the whole folder as some other applications might crash...and there is no point in deleting them if I can't fix the root of the problem...I will try this app though... — Gopi Manohar Tatiraju, Mar 09 '21 at 18:07
@Nmath it is just showing that syslog is occupying 49.3 GiB — Gopi Manohar Tatiraju, Mar 09 '21 at 18:13
Do a tail -f /var/log/syslog to find out the cause of the problem. — FedKad, Mar 09 '21 at 19:01
I tried running this command, It's an hour and there's no output... — Gopi Manohar Tatiraju, Mar 09 '21 at 20:44
Interesting. Does the syslog file's size increase with time? You should see the new log lines added to the end of the file. — FedKad, Mar 10 '21 at 08:34

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 09 '21 at 18:31

1

You could take a few actions to tackle this issue:

Find the cause for the huge syslog
Clean syslog the safe way
Implement logrotate

I am linking a couple of sources. There is no need to copy them here, as they belong to SE.

answered Mar 09 '21 at 18:31

sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio

14,674
11
44
97

I used this command: > /var/log/syslog. This create a new syslog file and renamed the old one as syslog.1 and then I deleted the syslog.1. Not sure if I did it the right way. – Gopi Manohar Tatiraju Mar 09 '21 at 19:00
@GopiManoharTatiraju - Did you read the sources I linked? It is explained how to do that. – sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio Mar 10 '21 at 00:21

var/log size 52.6 GB

1 Answers1