Hosting Operations

Read-only

Check Inodes When Disk Space Looks Fine

The system says there is no space left, but byte usage looks fine, so you need to check whether the filesystem ran out of inodes.

Command

df -ih

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Low when scoped to the shown target.

When not to use it: Do not use it to locate the directory with too many files. Follow up with targeted file-count inspection inside the affected mount.

Expected output

A filesystem table showing inode totals, used inodes, free inodes, inode use percentage, and mount points. High `IUse%` explains small-file exhaustion.

System impact

Read-only. Nothing changes. The command reports inode availability by filesystem, which is separate from free bytes.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

When to use it

Use when package installs, mail queues, caches, or session files fail despite apparently available disk space.

When not to use it

Do not use it to locate the directory with too many files. Follow up with targeted file-count inspection inside the affected mount.

Watch this command run

Command transcript

This sanitized transcript shows the commands and output shape without exposing host details.

demo@lab:~$

$ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        25G   19G  5G  80% /work
tmpfs           982M   12M  970M   2% /run

$ df -ih

Filesystem     Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        25G   19G  5G  80% /work
tmpfs            245K    12  245K    1% /run

View commands shown

These are the commands shown in the sanitized transcript.

Commands shown

df -h
df -ih

next steps

Related commands

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Check Bytes and Inodes Before Cleanup

No space left can mean full bytes, full inodes, or both.

df -h /lab/disk-inode-cleanup && df -ih /lab/disk-inode-cleanup

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Summarize Docker Disk Usage

See how Docker storage is split across images, containers, volumes, and cache.

docker system df -v

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Create a SHA256 Checksum Manifest

A file list says what exists; checksums say whether bytes match.

sha256sum source/app/config.yml source/content/index.md source/content/about.md source/assets/logo.svg

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Find Directories Burning Inodes

Inode cleanup starts by finding the directory with too many files.

find /lab/disk-inode-cleanup/var/cache/app -xdev -type f -printf '%h\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head

Hosting Operations Can be slow

Summarize Cache File Ages

Cache cleanup is safer when you know whether files are stale or still active.

find /lab/disk-inode-cleanup/var/cache/app -xdev -type f -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td\n' | sort | uniq -c

Study mapping

Use this as independent command practice: read the notes, predict the output, then compare it with the example before using a real shell.

Check Inodes When Disk Space Looks Fine

Before you run this

Expected output

System impact

When to use it

When not to use it

Command transcript

Commands shown

Related commands

Check Bytes and Inodes Before Cleanup

Summarize Docker Disk Usage

Create a SHA256 Checksum Manifest

Find Directories Burning Inodes

Summarize Cache File Ages

Useful for