Why is /var so big?

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, Craig White wrote:

> On Sun, 2005-03-20 at 14:36 -0500, Rob Rosenthal wrote:
>>> Execute as root: mkdir /var/cache/yum
>>> Btw. you broke it yourself by deleting all the content below /var/cache/
>>> (previous thread).
>>>
>>> Alexander
>>
>> Alexander,
>>
>> Oh, I know.  I absolutely did it myself in my haste to free up space. 
>> I tried (as root) the "mkdir /var/cache/yum" and got the following 
>> error message: "mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/cache/yum': No 
>> such file or directory"  I'm guessing it may be because I'm running FC2 
>> and not FC3, which has a new and different yum?  Do you think I should 
>> just reinstall yum?
>>
>> BTW, I really do appreciate your help...
> ----
> did you delete /var/cache itself?
>
> ls -l /var/cache
>
> if not found
>
> mkdir /var/cache
> mkdir /var/cache/yum
>
> might as well make
>
> /var/cache/alchemist
>
> and if you use samba (no doubt you would have noticed the effects of the
> delete if you do much at all with samba)
>
> /var/cache/samba

And /var/cache/man.  I don't know if they are recreated automatically, so 
maybe also

/var/cache/man/cat1 through cat9 catn local and X11R6.

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs