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System Administration Guide, Volume 2

Checking the Size of Files

You can check the size of files and sort them by using the ls command. You can find files that exceed a size limit by using the find command. For more information, see ls(1) and find(1).

How to Display the Size of Files

  1. Change the directory to where the files you want to check are located.

  2. Display the size of the files.


    $ ls [-l] [-s]

    -l

    Displays a list of files and directories in long format, showing the sizes in bytes. 

    -s

    Displays a list of the files and directories, showing the sizes in blocks. 

Examples--Displaying the Size of Files

The following example shows that lastlog and messages are larger than the other files in the /var/adm directory. 


$ cd /var/adm
$ ls -l
total 144
drwxrwxr-x   5 adm      adm          512 Sep  1 14:11 acct/
-rw-------   1 uucp     bin            0 Sep  1 14:08 aculog
-r--r--r--   1 root     root      350700 Sep  3 10:37 lastlog
drwxr-xr-x   2 adm      adm          512 Sep  1 14:08 log/
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       14619 Sep  2 16:11 messages
-rw-r--r--   1 adm      adm         8200 Sep  3 14:35 pacct
-rw-r--r--   1 adm      adm          920 Sep  3 10:47 pacct1
drwxr-xr-x   2 adm      adm          512 Sep  1 14:08 passwd/
drwxrwxr-x   2 adm      sys          512 Sep  1 14:11 sa/
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 Sep  1 14:36 sm.bin/
-rw-rw-rw-   1 root     bin            0 Sep  1 14:08 spellhist
-rw-------   1 root     root         420 Sep  3 14:17 sulog
-rw-r--r--   1 root     bin         4092 Sep  3 10:37 utmpx
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root         122 Sep  1 15:39 vold.log
-rw-r--r--   1 adm      adm        11904 Sep  3 10:47 wtmpx

The following example shows that lpsched.1 uses two blocks. 


$ cd /var/lp/logs
$ ls -s
total 2            0 lpsched       2 lpsched.1

How to Find Large Files

  1. Change directory to the location you want to search.

  2. Display the size of files in blocks from largest to smallest. 


    $ ls -s | sort -nr | more

    sort -nr

    Sorts the list of files by block size from smallest to largest. 

Example--Finding Large Files

In the following example, lastlog and messages are the largest files in the /var/adm directory. 


$ cd /var/adm
$ ls -s | sort -nr | more
  48 lastlog
  30 messages
  24 wtmpx
  18 pacct
   8 utmpx
   2 vold.log
   2 sulog
   2 sm.bin/
   2 sa/
   2 passwd/
   2 pacct1
   2 log/
   2 acct/
   0 spellhist
   0 aculog
total 144

How to Find Files That Exceed a Given Size Limit

To locate and display the names of files that exceed a specified size, use the find command. 


$ find directory -size +nnn

directory

Directory you want to search. 

-size +nnn

Is a number of 512-byte blocks. Files that exceed the size indicated are listed. 

Example--Finding Files That Exceed a Given Size Limit

The following example shows how to find files with more than 400 blocks in the current working directory. 


$ find . -size +400 -print
./Howto/howto.doc
./Howto/howto.doc.backup
./Howto/howtotest.doc
./Routine/routineBackupconcepts.doc
./Routine/routineIntro.doc
./Routine/routineTroublefsck.doc
./.record
./Mail/pagination
./Config/configPrintadmin.doc
./Config/configPrintsetup.doc
./Config/configMailappx.doc
./Config/configMailconcepts.doc
./snapshot.rs