Cleaning Junk/Data Loss

[Guest beta]

Hi guys. :D

 

 

Im a recent (about 8 months) linux user (My system is Mandriva 2005LE and im the only user) who moved from windows after years of use (like many others ). And as many others we like to keep our computers clean and free of uneeded stuff, So in windows you get rid of temp files, mozilla cache, unused/old/invalid keys at registry, swap space files created by some programs, etc.

 

First Question:

 

* How can i achieve the same scenario in linux?

* What files can/must/could be deleted?

* Is there a way to erase old messges from the always growing /var/log/messages file?

 

 

I have always been concern about stability and system/software crashes, recently i read a paper about linux file system and its way of Storing things, if im not wrong the main concept its "Fill buffers in memory first then write to disk" if that its true a power failure or sudden shutdown could lead to data loss :unsure: ?? cause things in memory arent writed to disk yet.

 

Second Question:

 

* Its there a way to avoid data loss under that conditions?

* Can we force the system to do instant write-to-disk?

 

 

Thats all guys, thx for reading and excuses if my english is bad :happy:

 

[moved from Tips & Tricks by spinynorman - welcome aboard :)]

[jboy]

  * How can i achieve the same scenario in linux?

  * What files can/must/could be deleted?

  * Is there a way to erase old messges from the always growing /var/log/messages                              file?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's a couple ideas, but not a complete answer to your questions.

 

This is a bash shell script that will trim files in /var/log to the last 50 lines. File should be owned by root with read, write, execute permissions by root only.

 

#trim /var/log
if [ `whoami` = "root" ]; then
  echo "Trimming /var/log..."
  find /var/log -type f -exec sh -c '[[ "${1##*.}" == "gz" ]] && rm $1 || (tail -50 $1 > ${1}.tmp && cat ${1}.tmp > $1 && rm ${1}.tmp)' '{}' '{}' \;
  echo "Finished with trimming"
else
  echo "You must be root to trim logs."
fi

 

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[Guest beta]

:D Thx for the quick reply, ill try the script

 

Can someone give us a hand on to the Data loss stuff??

[ramfree17]

I have always been concern about stability and system/software crashes, recently i read a paper about linux file system and its way of Storing things, if im not wrong the main concept its "Fill buffers in memory first then write to disk" if that its true a power failure or sudden shutdown could lead to data loss :unsure: ?? cause things in memory arent writed to disk yet.

 

Second Question:

 

  * Its there a way to avoid data loss under that conditions?

  * Can we force the system to do instant write-to-disk?

 

that is what journalling file systems are for. data have data (aka metadata) describing them so that in case of abrupt system failure the file modifications can be easily reconstructed by replaying the journal. the amount of data loss is going to be minimal but if that guarantee is not good enough for you then there are certain tweaks in file systems to minimize the windows of your loss.

 

instant write-to-disk? i think there are options for this but it is not recommended since it is not efficient. the reason why data is not directly written to disk is because I/O operations are costly. batching write instructios togerther is more efficient. even mission critical systems are using journaled filesystems so it should be good enough for most uses.

 

ciao!

[Guest beta]

that is what journalling file systems are for. data have data (aka metadata) describing them so that in case of abrupt system failure the file modifications can be easily reconstructed by replaying the journal. the amount of data loss is going to be minimal but if that guarantee is not good enough for you then there are certain tweaks in file systems to minimize the windows of your loss.

 

Thx for the reply, but i got a little confused, what do you mean by "replaying the journal." ?? its something the system does after rebooting from a system crash? or its a user related task?