I was frequently getting an error message that the /var/tmp directory in one of my cPanel CentOS 5.5 server is full and I need to delete some data. A cronjob is already there in crontab to cleanup the temporary data periodically, but I was still getting that error.
I looked at the error log and found that the tmp partition goes full when the scheduled backup runs. Therefore, I had nothing to do but increase the size of the tmp partition. After that, my server runs fine and no issues or error messages since then.
Here is How to increase the size of /var/tmp and /tmp partition
You need to have root access to your server. If not, you can’t increase the size of /tmp and /var/tmp partition directory, sorry.
Shutdown httpd and mysql using these commands
service httpd stop service mysql stop
First, you need to edit the file securetmp in /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/ folder. You can download the file using WinSCP, edit it and then upload it to the server.
In /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/securetmp file, look for a line like this:
my $tmpdsksize = 512000; # Must be larger than 250000
and change it to
my $tmpdsksize = 2097152; # Must be larger than 250000
This will allow us to allot 2GB of space size for the tmp partition.
Now, you need to log in to SSH using root account to make the changes. Once you are in, run these commands one by one.
umount -l /tmp umount -l /var/tmp rm -fv /usr/tmpDSK /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/securetmp
Depending on your server configuration, the commands may take some time to execute properly. When you are done, restart the server.
restart
Now when the server is fully restarted, you can check the partitions using the following command.
df -h
Hope this solves your problem.
Phoenix says
Did this. But this still created /tmp folder that is still 600MB. Any ideas why? How can I create a MUCH larger /tmp folder?
says
Thanks for explaining how to increase the size of the tmp partition and pointing out the scheduled backup being the cause. I also get this error occasionally and didn’t really why it was happening or what to do about it exactly.
-Jean