[ViX_Misc] tmpfs is inflated - main root system deflated

[Cucosat]

Hi,

I noticed that I had trouble installing some plugins and eventually tracked down the problem to a lack of space on the root filesystem.

Running a df -h revealed that my root filesystem had suddenly shrunk to 105MB, while I now had two tmpfs partitions one of which was over 140MB in size.

I did a complete reflash with a new image but that didn't solve anything which was quite surprising to me.

My current output from df -h:

Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
ubi0:rootfs             104.9M     91.3M     13.7M  87% /
tmpfs                    64.0K      4.0K     60.0K   6% /dev
/dev/sda1                 1.8T      1.7T     94.4G  95% /media/hdd
tmpfs                   142.4M    640.0K    141.8M   0% /var/volatile

My /etc/fstab:

rootfs               /                    auto       defaults              1  1
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0  0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0  0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      defaults              0  0
tmpfs                /var/volatile        tmpfs      defaults              0  0

Is it possible my bootloader has somehow become corrupted and can I simply/safely remove the tmpfs in the fstab?

I'm running ViX 2.4 rev 151.

 

[Trial]

Hi,
tmpfs is similar to a ramdisk (dynamic one) it has nothing to do with your flash being full.

ciao

 

[Cucosat]

Ok, somehow I just seem to recall seeing a much larger root file system before and got it in my head that it was supposed to be around 250MB.

It doesn't make much sense to me either to have a tmpfs as a ramdisk instead of simply using the RAM directly, does anyone know if there is a particular reason for this and if others are having a 140MB ramdrive on their ET9000 as well?

 

[Trial]

Hi,
you need a filesystem to store temporary files. You cannot simply put it into ram because no program will be able to access it.

ciao

 

[punisher]

here is mine for my ET9K

root@et9x00:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
ubi0:rootfs             104.6M    102.5M      2.1M  98% /
tmpfs                    64.0K      4.0K     60.0K   6% /dev
tmpfs                   142.4M    132.0K    142.3M   0% /var/volatile

 

[Cucosat]

Yes, I know that but I don't think it's necessary to have a tmpfs which is 1.4 times the size of the root filesystem.

 

[Cucosat]

Thanks punisher, looks very similar at least.

 

[Trial]

Hi,

Yes, I know that but I don't think it's necessary to have a tmpfs which is 1.4 times the size of the root filesystem.

you still do not understand. It is a dynamic "ramdisk" and what you see is the maximum size which is around the complete memory. If there are only files with the total length of 10MB in /tmp it only uses 10MB.

ciao

 

[pooface]

Here's mine also, so similar to you both

Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
ubi0:rootfs             104.9M     57.0M     47.9M  54% /
tmpfs                    64.0K         0     64.0K   0% /media
tmpfs                    64.0K      4.0K     60.0K   6% /dev
/dev/sda1                54.7G      6.3G     48.4G  11% /media/usb
/dev/sdb1                 1.8T      1.4T    422.7G  77% /media/hdd

 

[Cucosat]

Ok, got it now, I was just under the impression that once a ramdisk was defined, that memory address space was reserved and could not be used for other things. According to this page you are right in calling it a "ramdisk" since it's not actually a ramdisk (which does work in the way I understood):

http://e2enetworks.com/2008/10/25/linux-in-memory-filesystems-tmpfs-vs-ramdisk/

 

[Trial]

Hi,
it works the way you understood it but it is DYNAMICALLY. There were also dynamic ramdisks for PCs.

ciao