To: Alex Hunsaker <badalex@gmail.com>
cc: ibarg@noao.edu, pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: postgresql-server-8.4.4-1PGDG.el5 - ERROR: could not write block
	503414 of temporary file: No space le, ft on device
In-reply-to: <AANLkTinH9+s1WFAu2k3NnbYpd3Zh=DdyTb5ZduTsxZh-@mail.gmail.com> 
References: <4C4E05C8.9090702@noao.edu>
	<AANLkTinH9+s1WFAu2k3NnbYpd3Zh=DdyTb5ZduTsxZh-@mail.gmail.com>
Comments: In-reply-to Alex Hunsaker <badalex@gmail.com>
	message dated "Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:09:38 -0600"
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:33:52 -0400
Message-ID: <26275.1280194432@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

Alex Hunsaker <badalex@gmail.com> writes:
> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 16:01, Irene Barg <ibarg@noao.edu> wrote:
> 2010-07-26 11:33:33 MST system_admin metadataERROR:  could not write block
> 503414 of temporary file: No space le
> ft on device
> 2010-07-26 11:33:33 MST system_admin metadataHINT:  Perhaps out of disk
> space?

> Ok so it looks like this is on your / (sda3) partition that only has
> 1.7G free.  Its entirely possible that you have some query that needs
> to write more than that in tmp files.

"Block 503414" is a red flag here --- that means that this temp file
alone required 503414 * 8K = nearly 4Gb.  I suspect /var/lib/pgsql has
been symlinked someplace else, as the root device has clearly not got
anything close to that much free space.  It's quite possible that the
query involved multiple temp files, though, so maybe one of the other
partitions is getting filled.

			regards, tom lane