Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Free up space, disk storage >80%

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    48 Posts 5 Posters 10.3k Views 5 Watching
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • stephenw10S Offline
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Hmm. You're not running ZFS so no BE snaps.

      Is there any reason it's running in a 18G partition of the 60G disk?

      Does it change the reported usage across a reboot?

      R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • R Offline
        RobinH @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10

        Since my colleague created the server, it has been expanded with storage, I think. But then I don't know if there has been any work done to move it to Pfsense...
        We also just using one machine, so I have'nt had the guts to reboot it. Last time it rebooted it froze in the start up ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • stephenw10S Offline
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          It's running in a VM?

          pfSense won't use storage unless it's present at install or the filesystem is later modified manually.

          R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • R Offline
            RobinH @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10

            Yes, it runs on a VMware VM,

            be9e3976-1361-4ce6-91a3-71705b7c23b2-image.png

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • S Offline
              SteveITS Rebel Alliance @RobinH
              last edited by

              @RobinH said in Free Disk space >80%:

              Is it safe to uninstall PfBlocker

              Sure, it's safe, it's just a decision you make. Note when uninstalling there is a checkbox to keep settings/files or remove them:
              8aa8367f-357b-4d2e-a219-fbd4b96e687b-image.png

              Did you find this page?
              https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/filesystem-usage.html

              One way to get pfSense to use all 60 GB would be to reinstall pfSense and restore your configuration from backup.

              Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
              When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, and device or disk speed.
              Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S Offline
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                You can grow the filesystem to fill the available space. Since it's a VM you can just snapshot it first.

                To do it run touch /root/force_growfs then reboot.

                S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • S Offline
                  SteveITS Rebel Alliance @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10 Well that's much easier. :) Though reinstalling would get OP to ZFS.

                  Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                  When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, and device or disk speed.
                  Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • stephenw10S Offline
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Yup, but not something I'd recommend doing without a fall back plan! growfs like that is only ever normally run at first boot. Though I have used it on older VMs in exactly this situation.

                    R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • R Offline
                      RobinH @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10

                      Yeah, we are building a new setup, but now it gets kind of stressed... ๐Ÿ˜… But you dont see or know if there are files or logs I could clear out until the new setup is up and running? ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S Offline
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Mmm, it still shouldn't be anywhere near that full. Maybe you have a very large number of small files are exhausting inodes. Try: df -i

                        R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • R Offline
                          RobinH @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10

                          This is my output of df -i

                          Filesystem                  512-blocks     Used   Avail Capacity iused   ifree %iused  Mounted on
                          /dev/ufsid/5edf741a475fe581   38557496 29511840 5961064    83%   39858 2528332    2%   /
                          devfs                                2        2       0   100%       0       0  100%   /dev
                          tmpfs                             8192     2488    5704    30%     394   13942    3%   /var/run
                          tmpfs                             8192     2952    5240    36%     500   13836    3%   /var/run
                          devfs                                2        2       0   100%       0       0  100%   /var/dhcpd/dev
                          
                          GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • GertjanG Offline
                            Gertjan @RobinH
                            last edited by

                            @RobinH said in Free Disk space >80%:

                            /dev/ufsid/5edf741a475fe581 38557496 29511840 5961064 83% 39858 2528332 2% /

                            The number of total available 512 blocks is 38557496, so divide that number by 2 (half a kilobytes or 512 bytes) and you get 19M bytes, close to 18 Mbytes as mentioned above.

                            You didn't do this ?

                            @stephenw10 said in Free Disk space >80%:

                            To do it run touch /root/force_growfs then reboot.

                            or you did an nothing changed ?

                            Actually strange : the main advantage of using a VM is that you can do what you want with the file system, .... and you can't ?

                            These pfSense packages : acme, Openvpn-client-export, and Telegraf don't add use more disk space over time.

                            But Haproxy : I'm not sure.
                            Status_traffic_totals : I'm pretty sure this one produces a lot of data - and that is stored some where ๐Ÿ˜Š

                            Anyway : I still will advise you to use the ZFS file system, and the means a "re install" (with a VM that's a 5 minutes job if you have a slow machine ^^)

                            b3adc819-3a26-4cb0-b4d8-a55a7916afb5-image.png

                            Hummm : the other partition knows as "swap" takes up the other 60-18=42 ?
                            There is also a third 'boot' partion, but that one is (should be) a couple of Megas max.

                            No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                            Edit : and where are the logs ??

                            RobbieTTR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • RobbieTTR Offline
                              RobbieTT @Gertjan
                              last edited by RobbieTT

                              @Gertjan said in Free Disk space >80%:

                              Status_traffic_totals

                              For me running:

                               find /var/db/ -type d -ls | sort -n -r
                              

                              Showed that my ntopng and vnstat (aka Status_traffic_totals) databases were out of control. I have them nicely tamed now:

                              find /var/db/ -type d -ls | sort -n -r
                               21693        1 drwxr-x---    2 nut                              nut                                     3 May 23 19:31 /var/db/nut
                                 817        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 nobody                           nobody                                  2 Oct 11 12:28 /var/db/ntopng/rrd/graphics
                                 816        1 drwxr-xr-x    3 nobody                           nobody                                  3 Oct 11 12:28 /var/db/ntopng/rrd
                                 815        1 drwxr-xr-x    3 nobody                           nobody                                  3 Oct 11 12:28 /var/db/ntopng
                                 388        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 redis                            redis                                   2 Feb 17  2023 /var/db/redis
                                 276       17 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   5 Mar 15  2023 /var/db/pfblockerng/dnsblalias
                                 275        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   4 Oct 11 00:15 /var/db/pfblockerng/dnsblorig
                                 273        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Mar 12  2023 /var/db/pfblockerng/permit
                                 272        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Mar 12  2023 /var/db/pfblockerng/match
                                 271       17 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                  13 Oct 11 12:15 /var/db/pfblockerng/deny
                                 270        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Mar 12  2023 /var/db/pfblockerng/native
                                 269       17 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                  13 Oct 11 12:15 /var/db/pfblockerng/original
                                 268       17 drwxr-xr-x   11 root                             wheel                                  15 Oct 11 12:15 /var/db/pfblockerng
                                 256        1 drwxr-x---    2 _dhcp                            _dhcp                                   2 Aug 21 08:00 /var/db/dhcpcd
                                 251        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   3 Oct 11 12:25 /var/db/vnstat
                                 177        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Mar 12  2023 /var/db/pfblockerng/ET
                                 151        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   4 Oct 10 00:15 /var/db/pfblockerng/dnsbl
                                 138        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/zfsd/cases
                                 137        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/portsnap
                                 136        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/mtree
                                 135        1 drwx------    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/freebsd-update
                                 134        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 ntpd                             ntpd                                    2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/ntp
                                 133        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/ports
                                 132        1 drwx------    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/hyperv
                                 131        1 drwxr-xr-x    3 root                             wheel                                   3 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/zfsd
                                 130        1 drwx------    2 root                             wheel                                   2 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/ipf
                                 129       17 drwx------    2 operator                         operator                               10 Oct 10 08:24 /var/db/entropy
                                 128        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   3 Oct  3 18:59 /var/db/kea
                                  34       17 drwxr-xr-x   22 root                             wheel                                  41 Oct 11 12:28 /var/db/
                                  34       17 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                  10 Oct 10 12:04 /var/db/pkg
                                  28       49 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   5 May 24 11:59 /var/db/fontconfig
                                  19        1 drwxr-xr-x    2 root                             wheel                                   4 Jul  9 10:43 /var/db/aliastables
                                   3       17 drwxr-xr-x    2 nobody                           wheel                                  23 Sep  3 13:32 /var/db/rrd
                              

                              โ˜•๏ธ

                              R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • R Offline
                                RobinH @RobbieTT
                                last edited by

                                @RobbieTT This is my output in a txt-file because its to big...
                                What can I do with it, can I erase much of it?

                                output.txt

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • S Offline
                                  SteveITS Rebel Alliance @RobinH
                                  last edited by

                                  @RobinH said in Free Disk space >80%:

                                  The packages I run is Acme, Haproxy, Openvpn-client-export, PfBlocker (disabled, not in use), system_patches, Telegraf and Status_traffic_totals

                                  @RobinH said in Free Disk space >80%:

                                  output in a txt-file

                                  /var/db/ntopng ...

                                  Did you have ntopng installed, and uninstalled it?

                                  Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
                                  When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, and device or disk speed.
                                  Upvote ๐Ÿ‘ helpful posts!

                                  R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • stephenw10S Offline
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Your earlier output shows the total size of /var as 697MB. That's quite big but there is still ~11GB that seem to be unaccounted for.

                                    R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • R Offline
                                      RobinH @SteveITS
                                      last edited by

                                      @SteveITS ntopng is not installed, maybe it has been before.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • R Offline
                                        RobinH @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10 We have many OpenVPN tunnels, could that be it?

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • stephenw10S Offline
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          No VPNs don't really use any storage.

                                          If ntop has been uninstalled then you can remove all those db entries for it in /var.

                                          R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • R Offline
                                            RobinH @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10 Great, thats something :)
                                            Is there a good way to remove the whole ntopng directory from /var/db/ ?

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.