How to Recover from a Full Disk

When your disk hits 100%, many things break. Here's how to recover.

Emergency Cleanup

# Clear systemd journal
journalctl --vacuum-size=50M

# Clear apt cache
apt clean

# Find and remove large temp files
find /tmp -type f -mtime +1 -delete

# Remove old log files
find /var/log -name "*.gz" -delete
find /var/log -name "*.1" -delete

Check What's Using Space

du -h --max-depth=1 / | sort -rh | head -20

Prevention

• Set up logrotate for all log-producing applications
• Monitor disk with alerts (e.g., at 80% threshold)
• Use /etc/cron.daily/ scripts for periodic cleanup