RedHat 7.3 Linux Samba Fileserver/HDD space issues

[purity]

First of all, please understand that I'm a complete Linux newbie.

I rebooted our RedHat 7.3 Linux Samba fileserver today. The original reason for doing this was because I was experiencing difficulty running the useradd/adduser command. (The "Cannot lock password file" message came up whenever I attempted to add a user.) One person suggested that another process or command was accessing that file, and that rebooting the server would solve it.

Upon rebooting, nobody in the network was able to connect to the mapped network drives. Upon further insepction, I discovered that SMBD and NMBD were not running. I ran /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb. It claimed to start SMBD and NMBD. When checking the status, it stated that both processes were stopped.

I checked the smb.log file. There was a list of "Cannot write to smbd.pid (?). Insufficient device space" messages. Okay. So I run df and it reports that there is _absolutely no_ free space on the Linux partition (hde6).

Being that I am a complete idiot when it comes to Linux, a coworker and myself deleted all of the files in the <doc> directory (Hey, they're just READMEs and the like, right?). A very small amount of space was freed up. Rebooted the Linux box and found, much to my surprise and Samba was up and running!

Question: What could have caused the partition to fill? The network drive is on a separate partition (hde5, I think), and it has 55% free hard drive space.

I appreciate any help or advice offered.

Thanks,

 

[Morsing]

First of all: I know you and your coworkers are Windows people but rebooting is never the solution. If a file or process is locked, remove the lock file or find the process locking it. Problem solved.
There are no hidden mysteries in Linux and it doesn't work by 'black magic' as Windows does

Sorry, but this is one of the first things new Linux users have to learn

Okay, next problem:
Go to /
Do 'du -s *' This will tell you the size of the top level directories. Ignore /usr (probably) since this one has all the programme files.
If a directory, say /var or /tmp, is very big go to that directory and repeat the excorsise.

Most likely the problem is log files fx. in /var/log.

Cheers Henrik Morsing
IBM Certified AIX 4.3 Systems Administration