Linux - du (Disk Usage)

About

du is a disk usage tool that estimates file space usage by subfolder.

It exists also as Technet edition

• Windows: cleanmgr.exe Free also the %temp% directory.

Syntax

du [OPTION]... [FILE]...
du [OPTION]... --files0-from=F

Options

Data Filtering

• -a, –all: get info for all files, not just directories
• --max-depth=N: print the total for a directory (or file, with --all) only if it is N or fewer levels below the command line argument; --max-depth=0 is the same as --summarize
• -X FILE, --exclude-from=FILE: Exclude files that match any pattern in FILE.
• --exclude=PATTERN Exclude files that match PATTERN.

Summarize

• -s, --summarize display only a total for each argument
• -c, --total: produce a grand total

Calculation

• -S, --separate-dirs do not include size of subdirectories
• --apparent-size: print apparent sizes, rather than disk usage; although the apparent size is usually smaller, it may be larger due to holes in (“sparse”) files, internal fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the like

Symlink

• -l, --count-links: show sizes many times if hard linked
• -L, --dereference: dereference all symbolic links
• -P, --no-dereference: don’t follow any symbolic links (this is the default)

Formatting

Time

• --time show time of the last modification of any file in the directory, or any of its subdirectories
• --time=WORD show time as WORD instead of modification time: atime, access, use, ctime or status
• --time-style=STYLE show times using style STYLE:
  • full-iso,
  • long-iso,
  • iso,
  • +FORMAT FORMAT is interpreted like ‘date’

Newline

• -0, --null: end each output line with 0 byte rather than newline

Size

• -h, --human-readable: print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)
• --si like -h, but use powers of 1000 not 1024
• --block-size=SIZE: display the size as a multiple of SIZE. Shortcut
  • -b: bit --block-size=SIZE
  • -k: --block-size=1k
  • -m: --block-size=1M

Difference between du and df

du shows the space by file whereas df shows the space by block of file.

 lsof /device | grep -i deleted

Snippet

Top space

To find the top space users in a directory

du -k | sort -n

Show larger than specified size

• larger than 100MB

du -h -t 100M -a

get sizes of each file

du -a tmp

4       tmp/testFile.txt
8       tmp

get total size of a folder

• with –max-depth=0

du --max-depth=0 ~

6167480 /home/oracle

• with the s option

du -s ~

6167480 /home/oracle

get size of each sub folder

• with –max-depth=1

du -h --max-depth=1

get sub-folder total size of containing files only (without sub-folder size)

$ du -Sc --max-depth=1 ~

8       /home/oracle/jos
20      /home/oracle/.ssh
20      /home/oracle/index_advisor
4       /home/oracle/.mozilla
345688  /home/oracle/112272_diag
36276   /home/oracle/.dropbox-dist
4       /home/oracle/.gconf
4       /home/oracle/.gnome
4       /home/oracle/.dbus
20      /home/oracle/.dropbox
4       /home/oracle/.gnome2
4       /home/oracle/.gnome2_private
4       /home/oracle/.java
20      /home/oracle/.vnc
400     /home/oracle/linux8664
8       /home/oracle/bea
8       /home/oracle/.gconfd
12      /home/oracle/oraInventory
173020  /home/oracle/crash
16      /home/oracle/.dropbox-master
256     /home/oracle/Dropbox
4       /home/oracle/.config
4       /home/oracle/oradiag_oracle
4842736 /home/oracle
6167480 total