Disk space: quick troubleshooting

In this guide: Disk space: quick troubleshooting. df/du + sort by size.

For troubleshooting, keep logs (`journalctl`) and basic network/port checks handy. Avoid heavy diagnostics on production unless you understand the impact.

If something goes wrong: check the service is running, listening on the expected port, and that your firewall allows the connection. For web services, `nginx -t` and `journalctl -u nginx` are good starting points. Common culprits: `/var/log`, Docker (`/var/lib/docker`), package caches. Identify the source before deleting.

If the issue appears only under load, account for concurrency limits, timeouts, and backpressure. A typical approach is to reduce concurrency, add retries with jitter, and observe where degradation starts.

Below you’ll find a quick checklist, verification commands, and common pitfalls. This helps you not only “do it”, but also confirm what a correct outcome looks like.

Quick checklist

• Collect logs/metrics before you start “fixing” things.
• Change one variable at a time and record the outcome.
• If it happens under load, check limits/timeouts.
• Make one small change at a time and verify the result immediately.
• Keep notes of what you changed (file/command/time).

Verify the result

# Verify / sanity checks
sudo journalctl -xe --no-pager | tail -n 120 || true
dmesg -T | tail -n 120 || true
sudo ss -lntup | head -n 80

Common pitfalls

• Fixing first and checking logs later (root cause is lost).
• Ignoring load/timeouts during bulk operations.

df -h

sudo du -xh / --max-depth=2 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -n 30

sudo apt autoremove -y
sudo apt clean