OK, per the suggestion in comments here, I decided to see just what it was that was filling up the /var partition. Here it is:

##########################################

[root@linux-station ~]# du -s /var/*
12 /var/account
773872 /var/cache
16 /var/crash
28 /var/db
16 /var/empty
60 /var/gdm
56716 /var/lib
8 /var/local
128 /var/lock
86208 /var/log
448 /var/lost+found
4 /var/mail
232 /var/named
8 /var/nis
8 /var/opt
8 /var/preserve
340 /var/run
72480 /var/spool
8 /var/tmp
8 /var/tux
13936 /var/www
24 /var/yp

#################################

I can live without the contents of cache, right?

Well, maybe not:

[root@linux-station ~]# du -s /var/cache/*
80 /var/cache/alchemist
472 /var/cache/gstreamer-0.8
1344 /var/cache/man
8 /var/cache/mod_proxy
8 /var/cache/mod_ssl
384 /var/cache/samba
771568 /var/cache/yum

#######################################

Note that it's all cache/yum. Does that mean that if I blow it away, my ongoing yum upgrade gets clobbered? Getting rid of logs will help a little, but I suspect that the yum cache will quickly fill up the available space if I give it any. What now?

If it's still in the download process, quit it, and run yum-get -f clean and start over.

(Or whatever the option with yum is; I use apt.)

Of course, read the yum man page first.

I observe that you saw my suggestion, there was a reply. To summarize, you have so much free space in the root, that you can merge /var into root (temporarily or permanently).

86MB of logs is nothing, really. It won't save you when you need gigabytes.

Yes, /var/cache/yum is where packages to be installed are kept. Part of it is probably unnecessary now, but your reserve in the root is so enormous that it's not worth trying to figure it. Just copy it over and voila.

This produces about a gig of unused space in hda5, but let's keep priorities straight.

Pete's idea isn't a bad one, but having almost a gig of "yum" cache is suspicious.

Unfortunately, I don't know yum either, so I can't say for sure. My suspicion is that you *can* delete the yum cache and start over - and that a lot of that cache is old stuff left over from previous upgrades - but you need to check with the yellow dog dudes to make sure.

For what it's worth, the whole point of "cache" is that it's stuff that you can delete at will and the software will remake it if needed.

Hey, my system uses apt (yum seems to be a version of apt)? So I tried the apt-get clean and it shaved 100 megs off my /var/cache/apt directory (about 80%)

Looking at the yum man pages it appears the equivalent for you is:

yum clean packages

"Eliminate any cached packages from the system. Note that pack- ages are not automatically deleted after they are downloaded."

So, there you go - every upgrade you've ever done is still stashed in /var/cache/yum just in case you need it again. I bet that if you do the "yum clean packages" you'll get 90% of that space back.

Well, I'm a little hesitant to take advice from people who by their own admission don't know yum. Pete's final advice (to move /var to a roomier partition) seems to make the most sense to me. I'll be trying it later today.

Michael, having a gig in the yum cache is not suspicious. Before this is all over, Rand is going to have 3.6GB there: all packages which yum downloaded. Also, I mentioned "yum clean packages" in my earlier comments. But it should be done only after the upgrade has completed, and no earlier.