Why is there 8GB worth of files in my /tmp?

I just got a notification saying I have a small amount of disk space left:

so I opened baobab to investigate and noticed this:

It turns out that my /tmp folder is full of files names like tmpxxxxxx. These look to me like temporary files created by a python script.

How can I find out what program is causing this?

The timestamps vary between approximately when I first logged in to now. They are binary files and file managers see them as type 'unknown'.

lsof /tmp/tmp* gives nothing.

When I run ls -l /tmp/tmp*, the last 10 entries are:

-rw------- 1 david david 21195909 2011-08-29 21:53 /tmp/tmpzTXYNT
-rw------- 1 david david 2381 2011-08-29 15:53 /tmp/tmpZuKqAW
-rw------- 1 david david 6987663 2011-08-29 18:38 /tmp/tmpZuSEp5
-rw------- 1 david david 1789626 2011-08-29 20:33 /tmp/tmpzv3MST
-rw------- 1 david david 19266899 2011-08-29 22:15 /tmp/tmpZxMCU5
-rw------- 1 david david 21197879 2011-08-29 20:52 /tmp/tmpzxSXv2
-rw------- 1 david david 65960 2011-08-29 18:13 /tmp/tmpZyA6aJ
-rw------- 1 david david 352529 2011-08-29 22:47 /tmp/tmpzz3jPd
-rw------- 1 david david 13869 2011-08-29 22:25 /tmp/tmp_ZZ3ZA
-rw------- 1 david david 17277993 2011-08-29 20:53 /tmp/tmpZzSmnL

3 Answers

How about using the inotify-tools package?

You can install it and try the following:

$ cd /tmp
$ lsof `inotifywait -e create --format "/tmp/%f" .`

If you create a file in another terminal, like:

$ cat > /tmp/aa

the lsof output might show something like

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
cat 3576 marcelo 1w REG 8,1 0 274376 /tmp/aa

I just tried the lsof command again and I got this:

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
ubuntuone 21086 david 49r REG 8,4 1790938 1473680 /tmp/tmpYemldG
ubuntuone 21086 david 50r REG 8,4 12903 1473668 /tmp/tmpzZZV7s
ubuntuone 21086 david 52r REG 8,4 21702 1473689 /tmp/tmpXrw6n8
ubuntuone 21086 david 53r REG 8,4 25645 1473683 /tmp/tmp5jFc1h
ubuntuone 21086 david 54r REG 8,4 275049 1473685 /tmp/tmphrw2g3
ubuntuone 21086 david 55r REG 8,4 501273 1473684 /tmp/tmpbu2ET8
ubuntuone 21086 david 56r REG 8,4 7027579 1473687 /tmp/tmpSY_QO8
ubuntuone 21086 david 57r REG 8,4 19404032 1473686 /tmp/tmpokUSil
ubuntuone 21086 david 58r REG 8,4 17277993 1473688 /tmp/tmpqjYsMG
ubuntuone 21086 david 59r REG 8,4 21198443 1473682 /tmp/tmp1QGY_A

So it looks like Ubuntu One is the culprit. For some reason it doesn't seem to clean up after itself. I 'solved' this by killing ubuntuone-syncdaemon and then running sudo rm -f /tmp/tmp*.

Ubuntu One has a design flaw It replicates data files in /tmp. I'm talking GB of data just filling up /tmp I disabled and voila, got my disk space back (after reboot)

The basic flaw of Ubuntu One is not implementing a repository based lock on a file while updating it and doing out of place synchronization All the rest is Ubuntu One developers excuses for a poor design.

My advice - disable it .

Once a week / when you add new data enable, allow to update andthen disable it again and restart.

Terrible way, but the only way you don't lose your disk space