[Tech] server machinations

[Daniel Melnechuk]

So httpd logs through syslogd? Ok, that explains it. I didn't think  
of that. So even though i took down httpd, syslogd by virtue of  
having the inodes open for writing for the httpd log files kept the  
files there though there were not any directory entries to them. I  
love inodes! Really! Separating the construct of the file from the  
directory entry is very powerful. Those engineers at Bell Labs back  
in the '70s had their heads screwed on well.

Thanks MacK!

On May 10, 2008, at 6:21 PM, Edmund R. MacKenty wrote:

> Daniel Melnechuk writes:
>> After copying was successful, i then deleted the ones on /var/log/
>> httpd. Curiously enough, the disk usage level did NOT go down. The
>> server was in the classic funky state as systems admin like to say.
>>
>> Then i restarted the server to flush out the funky state. And it
>> worked. I don't like to just restart to flush out stuff but if this
>> happens again, then we need to track down what was up.
>
> The disk usage level did not go down because the syslog daemon  
> still had
> all the log files you had deleted from /var/log open.  Thus the  
> space they
> occupied was not freed up.  You can restart just the syslog daemon  
> instead
> of rebooting the system to take care of that problem.
> 	- MacK.
> -----
> Edmund R. MacKenty
>
> It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities  
> without
> your help.
>