How to resolve `FATAL: could not write lock file "postmaster.pid": No space left on device` error?
diskspace, fedora16, linux, postgresql, unix
Solution
This is not really a programming question so it should be on superuser.
Short answer -
reboot the system.
If the system comes back up, try:
find / -mtime -3 -size +100000 -exec ls -ls {} \; | sort -n
The largest newest files will be at the bottom of the list. If you can see that the file is not part of an app- a data file for example- remove it. You need at least 5% free space on /.
Long term you must add more disk space, like double or triple what you have.
Problem
I have installed postgres 8.4.9 database in my fedora core 14 and deployed an application. It was working fine until today before I tried to restart the system. Now I am unable to start the pgsql. When I am trying to start I am getting the following error FATAL: could not write lock file "postmaster.pid": No space left on device I googled but was not able to find the solution for this issue. Could someone please help in solving this issue? This is the output of df -kh command: ``` Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/vda 9.9G 9.5G 0 100% / tmpfs 2.0G 88K 2.0G 1% /dev/shm ```