As the linux administrator, sometimes we have to identify which files are most take much space in the linux server resulting in low free space.
Low disk space can also affect server performance and sometimes cause critical processes such as backup job to fail.
This article shows how you can find big files size on Linux CentOS and RHEL.
Command Example to Find Big Files Size on Linux
1. How to display the biggest directories in /var/log and display the result in human readable format
# cd /var/log # du -sh * | sort -rh | head -10 78M nginx 14M audit 1012K dmesg.old 980K messages-20170109 700K messages-20160907 556K anaconda 288K messages-20161212 128K wtmp 120K httpd 96K messages-20160929
2. To display the largest folders including the sub-directories for /var/log :
# du -Sh /var/log | sort -rh | head -10 78M /var/log/nginx 14M /var/log/audit 3.6M /var/log 556K /var/log/anaconda 120K /var/log/httpd 68K /var/log/tuned 56K /var/log/mariadb 28K /var/log/php-fpm 4.0K /var/log/varnish 4.0K /var/log/ppp
or
# du -Sh /var/log | sort -n -r | head -n 10 556K /var/log/anaconda 120K /var/log/httpd 78M /var/log/nginx 68K /var/log/tuned 56K /var/log/mariadb 28K /var/log/php-fpm 14M /var/log/audit 4.0K /var/log/varnish 4.0K /var/log/ppp 4.0K /var/log/dirsrv
3. To display the largest files including the sub-directories for /var/log :
# du -ah /var/log | sort -rh | head -10 96M /var/log 78M /var/log/nginx/ehowstuff.local.error.log-20160907 78M /var/log/nginx 14M /var/log/audit 6.1M /var/log/audit/audit.log.2 6.1M /var/log/audit/audit.log.1 1.8M /var/log/audit/audit.log 1012K /var/log/dmesg.old 980K /var/log/messages-20170109 700K /var/log/messages-20160907
4. To find the largest files in a particular location or directory for example /var/log :
# find /var/log -type f -exec du -Sh {} + | sort -rh | head -n 10
78M /var/log/nginx/ehowstuff.local.error.log-20160907
6.1M /var/log/audit/audit.log.2
6.1M /var/log/audit/audit.log.1
1.8M /var/log/audit/audit.log
1012K /var/log/dmesg.old
980K /var/log/messages-20170109
700K /var/log/messages-20160907
288K /var/log/messages-20161212
184K /var/log/anaconda/anaconda.storage.log
152K /var/log/nginx/ehowstuff.local.access.log-20160907.gz
5. To find the largest files (top 10) in a particular location or directory for example /var/log :
# find /var/log -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|head 81440064 /var/log/nginx/ehowstuff.local.error.log-20160907 6291477 /var/log/audit/audit.log.2 6291467 /var/log/audit/audit.log.1 1823505 /var/log/audit/audit.log 1052691 /var/log/dmesg 1001793 /var/log/messages-20170109 709481 /var/log/messages-20160907 293738 /var/log/messages-20161212 292000 /var/log/lastlog 187757 /var/log/anaconda/anaconda.storage.log
6. To display the largest files(top 20) in a particular location or directory for example /var/log using ls command :
# ls -lSh | head -n20 total 3.7M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1M Jan 9 21:52 dmesg -rw------- 1 root root 979K Jan 9 15:12 messages-20170109 -rw------- 1 root root 693K Sep 7 03:21 messages-20160907 -rw------- 1 root root 287K Dec 12 10:01 messages-20161212 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 286K Jan 9 22:03 lastlog -rw-rw-r--. 1 root utmp 125K Jan 9 22:03 wtmp -rw------- 1 root root 95K Sep 29 21:01 messages-20160929 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 94K Jan 9 14:57 dmesg.old -rw------- 1 root root 81K Jan 9 22:07 messages -rw------- 1 root root 55K Sep 6 23:16 secure-20160907 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 36K Sep 7 03:21 cron-20160907 -rw-------. 1 root root 26K Jan 4 22:12 yum.log-20170109 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23K Jan 9 21:53 vmware-vmsvc.log -rw-------. 1 root root 17K Dec 30 2015 yum.log-20160101 -rw------- 1 root root 9.3K Jan 9 14:59 secure-20170109 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9.2K Jan 9 21:52 boot.log -rw-------. 1 root root 8.0K Dec 20 22:39 grubby -rw------- 1 root root 7.3K Dec 12 10:17 maillog-20161212 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5.4K Jan 9 15:19 cron-20170109