From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Guy Waugh Subject: Re: How to access contents of directory underneath mounted volume? Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:10:01 +1000 Message-ID: <48B49B59.6030801@scu.edu.au> References: <48B35D4A.2040200@scu.edu.au> <18611.29022.835143.552260@cerise.gclements.plus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <18611.29022.835143.552260@cerise.gclements.plus.com> Sender: linux-admin-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: linux-admin@vger.kernel.org Glynn Clements wrote: > Guy Waugh wrote: > >> On a RHEL4 host, I have a mountpoint, /thing, with a SAN volume mounted >> at this mountpoint. >> >> The local volume that contains the mountpoint (i.e. the volume that is >> mounted at /) is nearly full, and I'm suspecting it is because there are >> files on the local volume in the /thing directory. Of course, I can't >> get to the /thing directory by normal means (at least AFAIK), because >> there is currently a volume mounted at that mountpoint. >> >> Does anyone know if it possible to access (i.e. see and delete) the >> files in the /thing directory without having to umount the SAN volume >> that is mounted at /thing? > > If some existing process has its CWD underneath /thing, then you can > access that directory via /proc//cwd. > > You could use debugfs on the root fs, but I wouldn't recommend trying > to modify a filesystem while it's mounted r/w. > > If you can't unmount the SAN because it's busy, you may still be able > to move its mount point with "mount --move". If you can allow for it > being unavailable briefly you could move it off just long enough to > rename the underlying directory, e.g.: > > mkdir /thing.tmp > mount --move /thing /thing.tmp > mv /thing /thing.orig > mkdir /thing > mount --move /thing.tmp /thing > rmdir /thing.tmp Thanks Glynn, the last suggestion using "mount --move" looks like the most useful. However, it's sounding like it's going to be easiest for me to schedule some downtime. Cheers, Guy.