Review Log Files Before Cleanup

Log files are suspected during disk pressure and you need a compact review list before changing retention or truncating anything.

Command

find /lab/disk-inode-cleanup/var/log -xdev -type f -printf '%10s %TY-%Tm-%Td %p\n' | sort -nr

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Can create load on large logs, directories, filesystems, or process tables.

When not to use it: Do not treat log cleanup as a substitute for fixing missing rotation or runaway logging.

A size-sorted list of log files with modification dates and paths.

Read-only, can be slow. Nothing changes. The command prints log file sizes, dates, and paths for review.

May require elevated permissions on protected paths or service-owned files.

Scope this to the smallest useful path or service on busy systems.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

Use before truncating, compressing, rotating, or moving logs during disk incidents.

Do not treat log cleanup as a substitute for fixing missing rotation or runaway logging.

Explanation-only example

This example is intentionally illustrative. It shows the command shape without killing real processes or changing your machine.

demo@lab:~$

$ find /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/log -xdev -type f -printf '%10s %TY-%Tm-%Td %p\n' | sort -nr

  44040192 2026-06-26 /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/log/nginx/access.log
  18874368 2026-06-26 /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/log/nginx/error.log.1

$ find /work/disk-inode-cleanup/var/log -xdev -type f -printf '%s %p\n' | awk '{total += $1} END {printf "log_total_mb=%.1f\n", total/1024/1024}'

log_total_mb=60.0

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