Weird /tmp problem

[Glenn Steen]

On 06/12/06, Ken A <ka at pacific.net> wrote:
> You are running ls and df as root, right? Are you running any IDS? It's
> good to rule out the worst case scenarios first, even if that might seem
> paranoid. /tmp is an obvious target. ls output shouldn't conflict with
> df output. check ls -la carefully for anything funny looking (a dir
> beginning with a space, etc).
> Ken A.
> Pacific.Net
>
> Gavin Nelmes-Crocker wrote:
> > I'm suddenly seeing a really strange problem which has bugged me now for
> > a couple of days with no resolution
> >
> > Box Bluequartz (cobalt type OS)
> >
> > df -h gives below
> >
> > Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/md1              6.0G  1.4G  4.3G  24% /
> > /dev/md0               99M   38M   56M  41% /boot
> > none                 1014M     0 1014M   0% /dev/shm
> > /dev/md4               62G  8.6G   50G  15% /home
> > /dev/md2             1012M   34M  927M   4% /tmp
> > /dev/md3              4.0G  1.7G  2.1G  45% /var
> >
> > I have Mailscanner-4.57.6-1 installed (upgraded tonight from slightly
> > earlier version to see if the problem got resolved.
> >
> > Problem - When i turn MailScanner on suddenly /tmp starts to fill
> > rapidly and i then see an error in the logs
> >
> >  MailScanner[21007]: ERROR: Unable to create temporary directory
> >
> > If i do du -h i see below clearly showing there is a problem with /tmp
> >
> > Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/md1              6.0G  1.4G  4.3G  24% /
> > /dev/md0               99M   38M   56M  41% /boot
> > none                 1014M     0 1014M   0% /dev/shm
> > /dev/md4               62G  8.6G   50G  15% /home
> > /dev/md2             1012M 1012M     0 100% /tmp
> > /dev/md3              4.0G  1.7G  2.1G  45% /var
> >
> > but if i look at a listing with ls -al i see nothing different and more
> > importantly nothing taking up massive disk space.
> >
> > The result is that the users mail gets processed but they get no message
> > and no subject the email is blank apart from the Mailscanner headers
> >
> > As soon as i stop mailscanner and restart sendmail on its own everything
> > returns to normal.
> >
> > Where should i be looking? this was all working until Monday morning
> > when it suddenly stopped, as far as i know no reboot or software update
> > to cause it - weird
> >
Good sugegstions... Also... When you stop MailScanner, is the "lost
space" suddenly available again?

-- 
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se