Cannot login says out of disk space?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Running openSUSE 10.3 still and has been working for a long time now, until yesterday …

getting the following error when trying to login …

GDM could not write to your authorization file. This could mean that you are out of disk space or that your home directory could not be opened for writing. In any case, it is not possible to login. Please contact youre system administrator.

I don’t believe that the server is out of disk space unless i am missing something …

mail:/ # df -ah
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3      19G  4.4G   14G  25% /
proc                     0     0     0   -  /proc
sysfs                    0     0     0   -  /sys
debugfs                  0     0     0   -  /sys/kernel/debug
udev                  1.5G   80K  1.5G   1% /dev
devpts                   0     0     0   -  /dev/pts
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2      13G  3.8G  8.4G  31% /home
mail:/ #


mail:/ # top
top - 00:24:44 up 20 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks:  81 total,   1 running,  80 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.1%us,  0.1%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.7%id,  0.1%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   3116400k total,   172712k used,  2943688k free,     8120k buffers
Swap:  2104472k total,        0k used,  2104472k free,   127100k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 3578 root      18   0  2188 1076  836 R    0  0.0   0:00.02 top
    1 root      15   0   740  288  240 S    0  0.0   0:01.59 init
    2 root      12  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd
    3 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    4 root      39  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    5 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/1
    6 root      34  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/1
    7 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/2
    8 root      34  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/2
    9 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/3
   10 root      36  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/3
   11 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.24 events/0
   12 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.10 events/1
   13 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.06 events/2
   14 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.15 events/3
   15 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper
   37 root      14  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/0
   38 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/1
   39 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/2
   40 root      19  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/3
   41 root      14  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
   42 root      14  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpi_notify
  136 root      14  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cqueue/0
  137 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cqueue/1
  138 root      17  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cqueue/2
  139 root      18  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cqueue/3
  140 root      11  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.01 kseriod
  162 root      21   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
  163 root      15   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
  164 root      18  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kswapd0
mail:/ #

When i go to create a simple text file it does say that i am out of space …

mail:/ # echo hello > test
-bash: test: No space left on device
mail:/ #

Would appreciate anyones assitance, kind of stumped on this one …

Thanks

#2

Could this be a disk problem? Did you try to run a file system check?

I also found something about permissions on /tmp being changed to 755. Is this the case on your system? Change the perms to 777 and try to login again.

#3

> Running openSUSE 10.3 still and has been working for a long time
> now, until yesterday …

never a good sign when something SUDDENLY no longer works…

> getting the following error when trying to login …
>
> Code: -------------------- GDM could not write to your
> authorization file. This could mean that you are out of disk space
> or that your home directory could not be opened for writing. In any
> case, it is not possible to login. Please contact youre system
> administrator. --------------------
>
>
> I don’t believe that the server is out of disk space unless i am
> missing something …

well, maybe you missed the word “or” in that error…which introduces
a potential problem: “your home directory could not be opened for
writing.”

who is the owner of, and what are the permissions for the file named
…ICEauthority in the home directory of the user you are trying to
sign in??

tell me, (since 10.3 has worked a long time until yesterday) have you
in the last few days logged into that server’s gui (Gnome?) as root,
or done any updates/patches/upgrades via SUSE Updater or YaST??

btw, considering the fact that you DID log in, and was able to run
both top and, df kind’a makes your subject line a funny, no?

finally, i would advise you to ignore any advice urging to change
permissions of directories in the root tree structure (such as /tmp)
to 777, until YOU know and understand all potential consequences of such…

–
solo

#4

Another possibility is more sinister: your disk is failing. Do that test again:


echo foo > test
df .

That should tell you what the free space is on the partition the current directory is on. If the results contradict, have a look in your system log to see if there are any messages about any disk errors. If there is anything suspicious, and you can physically reach the machine, you might want to take it down for a disk check. It might be a mail server but if you really have a disk problem, you might not have service much longer.