How do I fix disk space issues on my Droplet?
When the space on the Droplet’s disk is full, it can interfere with the Droplet’s functionality, such as causing database write issues, being unable to view application logs, Droplet resizing problems, and being unable to reset the Droplet’s root password. Clearing space on the Droplet’s hard disk allows the Droplet to function normally.
To fix the problem, access the Droplet via SSH or log in using the Recovery Console.
You can check which folders are using the most space on the Droplet by using the disk utilization command, du:
du -h --max-depth=1 /var
The command returns output similar to this:
4.0K /var/local
4.0K /var/opt
91M /var/cache
4.0K /var/mail
623M /var/lib
214M /var/log
4.0K /var/crash
28K /var/spool
1.6M /var/backups
60K /var/snap
36K /var/tmp
930M /var
In this example, the command lists the directories in the /var directory and how much space they are using. The -h flag returns the output in a human-readable format, and the --max-depth=1 flag outputs the disk usage only for the folders in the /vars directory. Increasing the value of --max-depth returns additional levels of subfolders. You can use the du command to assess other directories and sub-directories by changing the path in the command.
Once you see which directories have high utilization, you can use the list command, ls, with the -larSh flag to see which individual files are largest in the directory:
ls -larSh /var/log/
In the example above, this returns all of the files in /var/log directory, sorted by size, in human-readable format.
Rapid increases in disk utilization are commonly caused by system or application log files being filled with errant entries in the /var directory. When clearing out hard disk space on your Droplets, we suggest you start by assessing the space usage of files in the /var directory. The /var directory also commonly houses website and database files making it a prime location for high disk utilization.
Based on the output, you can start deleting unwanted files. To delete a file, use the rm command, like rm path/to/your/file. To delete a directory, use the -d directory flag, like rm -d path/to/a/directory.
After deleting old files, unwanted programs, log rotations, and removing extra packages, run the disk free command (df) with the human-readable format (-h) flag to verify that the disk space has been reduced:
df -h
The command returns output similar to this:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 474M 0 474M 0% /dev
tmpfs 99M 960K 98M 1% /run
/dev/vda1 25G 2.5G 22G 11% /
tmpfs 491M 0 491M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 491M 0 491M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
...
The output displays the size of each file system on the Droplet, the space used in each file system, and how much space is available. The /dev/vda1 represents your Droplet’s hard disk space.
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