Find out what's under a mount point? -- solved

[1clue]

Hi,

I have a production box. There is a data directory on its own filesystem. Let's call it /data. The root filesystem is filling up and I can't see where the files are. I've been using du -hs `ls -A` to navigate the largest used points, but the numbers don't add up. There are several gigabytes used which are not accounted for. As well there is a period of time for which data are missing.

I suspect that somehow during a maintenance cycle the /data filesystem was unmounted, data written and the /data filesystem mounted again.

I can't justify taking the services down to unmount that filesystem, is there a way to peek without unmounting?

Thanks.

[Atom2]

I can't justify taking the services down to unmount that filesystem, is there a way to peek without unmounting?

1clue,
I have no access to a system currently, so can't test whether it actually works. Having said that, I assume the following should actually work:

Code: Select all

# mkdir /mnt/datapeek
# mount --bind / /mnt/datapeek
# ls -l /mnt/datapeek/data

In my view, that should list the files in the original root filesystem excluding the mounted file system under /data (which, while being mounted, hides what's currently in /data)

I hope that helps and would appreciate a quick feedback whether the stuff actually works as I expect.

Regards Atom2

[Naib]

sounds like you need a --bind mount

[1clue]

It works, thanks guys!

And yes that's my problem.