Cleaning up unnecessary space on PBS/CloudCache
Updated over a week ago

Problem description

In scenarios where Cloud Cache/PBS root directory is 100 percent utilized resulting in service halt.
We can free up some space to ensure PBS/CloudCache is up and running.
These steps could be helpful when it would take some time to increase disk space causing delay in operation.
This is a temporary solution, while adding space would be necessary in a longer run.

Resolution

Systemd has its own logging system called the journal, and the log files are stored in /var/log/journal. As long as we don’t need the logs for any debugging, it’s safe to delete the older ones.

  • Navigate to the following path:
    /var/log/journal

  • Check how much space is being utilized by these journal logs by typing the following command:
    du -sh

  • Clear the journal logs by choosing one of following commands:

    • Delete journal logs older than X days:
      sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2days

    • Delete log files until the disk space taken falls below the specified size:
      sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=100M

    • Delete old logs and limit file number to X:
      sudo journalctl --vacuum-files=5

  • You can also edit the configuration file to limit the journal log disk usage (100 MB for example).

    • Navigate to the path /etc/systemd/journald.conf
      sudo vi /etc/systemd/journald.conf

    • Add SystemMaxUse=50M to the end of the configuration file:
      SystemMaxUse=50M

    • Write out and close the file:
      :wq

  • Restart the journald service:
    systemctl restart systemd-journald

See also

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