When an UNIX file system (UFS) fills up, you will see the following message in the console window:
... file system full
However, with ZFS datasets, the file system full message is not reported when dataset is filled up.
There are several reasons why a file system fills up. The following sections describe several scenarios for recovering from a full file system.
Cause: On ZFS, file system (dataset) size can either be the full size of the underlying zpool or the size of the quota set within the dataset property. Unlike traditional UFS, when a ZFS file system (dataset) is filled up, the system does not report file system full in /var/adm/messages. On ZFS file system that do not have quota property set, the size of the file system is the size of the underlying zpool.
Solution: To monitor for dataset usage and zpool usage, you can use the zfs list and the zpool list commands. For more information, see Resolving ZFS Space Issues in Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Cause: Someone accidentally copied a file or directory to the wrong location or an application crashed and wrote a large core file to the file system.
Solution: Log in and assume the root role. Use the ls -tl command in the file system to identify which large file is newly created and then remove it.
Cause: A TMPFS file system is trying to write more than is allowed or current processes are using a lot of memory.
Solution: For information about recovering from tmpfs-related error messages, see the tmpfs(7FS) man page.