The root partition shows to be 100% full and after the removal of some
files under root, the usage is still at 100%. We have removed some rpm
packages that were not used and we still have the same result.
We have already tried using the du command to show file disk usage, and
can not find anything that appears out of the ordinary. We are running
Red Hat 7.2. Are there any alternatives to rebuilding the system?

Do you have a separate partition for /usr? If so, removing rpm's won't help to free up space on the root partition. Type 'mount' and see if there's a line saying '/dev/xxx on /usr type ...' then you have a separate /usr partition. In that case it's probably your /tmp or /var directories that have become over-crowded.

If this is not the case and 'du' shows 100% and you're positive it's not so then the root filesystem is probably corrupted. You can find out by doing a 'e2fsck -n /dev/xxxx' where xxxx is the corresponding device name -- check the output from 'du'. Now if e2fsck complains that your partition contains errors, it's best you boot with the installation CD and start a 'rescue system' (Sorry, don't know if that is the name RedHat uses). You should get a root shell. Now since your hard disk partitions are not mounted you can safely do a repair by saying 'e2fsck -f /dev/xxxx'

Good luck! --- and don't forget to always create backups before doing this sort of things!

nukkel

Howzit

Is your drive partitioned all under root or do you have a diffrent layout?

If all under root then I would check /var this is normally where all your logs get stored it may be that you don´t have logrotate activated for some reason. If it´s a production system them backup logs to another machone then clean out old ones. your /tmp should be clened out by tmpwatch which normally is run buy anacron I think.

Good luck

chow