Disk & Filesystem Management (Du/Df/Lsblk/Fstrim)

Stop hunting for massive hidden files that df is hiding from you

🧩 The Challenge

Ever been paged because a partition is at 100 percent, but your directory listing shows absolutely nothing big enough to account for the missing space? I spent half a night once chasing phantom storage ghosts only to realize I had a massive log file still held open by a process I’d already killed.

💡 The Fix

Use lsof to spot the deleted files that are still sucking up your inode and storage capacity because a process is refusing to let them go. It’s the fastest way to reclaim space without a reboot.

lsof +L1

⚙️ Why It Works

Adding that +L1 flag tells the tool to list all files with a link count of zero, meaning they exist on the disk but have been unlinked from the directory tree. Once you see the process ID, just restart the service and watch your df output finally drop back to normal.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Pipe that into awk to grab just the PIDs if you’re planning on automating a cleanup script.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 9/6/2026