54 GB in /var/log!!

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2008-10-26 at 20:12 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
> 	One of my F9 machines -- actually my #1 main machine -- started 
> having display problems. I see this a lot, because my hardware isn't 
> really up to date enough to handle my monitor optimally. So I tried a 
> couple of tricks that usually help, and they didn't.
> 
> 	Then I thought to run baobab. Lo and behold, I was running out of 
> space -- because /var/log shows up consuming 54 GB of space! Yes, fifty-
> four gigs.
> 
> 	What could be causing this, and what do i do about it?? 
> 
> 	At present, the machine offers only a CLI login; if I use is as 
> root, startx still works; but if I log in as user, startx fails. So I 
> can't run Pan, and can't c&p directly between anything in it (including 
> this list!) and the CLI.
> 
> 	I can still do what I'm doing now: access the list via Pan on 
> another machine, and go back & forth with my KVM switch; but it makes it 
> hard, for instance, to post things like a list of contents for /var/log, 
> or any whole file in it.
> 
> 	Obviously, I want to cut /var/log with electronic double-bitted 
> axes in both hands, to get to my user's GUI again; and to find the source 
> of the bloat and correct it.
> 
> 	What should I do first??
----
from command line, cut down your large log files by locating them...

# find /var/log -type f -size +2000k -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print
$8 ": " $5 }'

and any file that is really large (i.e. /var/log/Xorg.0.log)

command line empty it...
# > /var/log/Xorg.0.log

if startx only works as root, it sounds as if some permission isn't
correct (possibly /etc/X11/xorg.conf is not 644, readable by all users).
Of course if that were the issue, /var/log/Xorg.0.log would tell you
that or if it were some other permissions issue, the problem would
probably be listed in /var/log/messages

On Fedora 9, it often is enough to just do something like 
# mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf-bak
# shutdown now -r

and it is automatically rebuilt upon reboot

Craig