Situation
In a production environment, our team received an alert indicating that a Linux server’s disk utilization had reached a critical threshold of 90%. The issue presented a risk to service stability and required investigation to identify the source of the excessive disk consumption.
Investigation
I participated in troubleshooting the issue by first examining the server’s storage metrics, including disk utilization and I/O operations per second (IOPS), to understand whether the problem was related to storage capacity, disk activity, or abnormal application behavior.
After reviewing the initial metrics, we began systematically investigating filesystem usage, working through directories to identify where the majority of the disk space was being consumed.
This process eventually led us to an application logging directory containing several months worth of accumulated log files. The files had grown significantly over time without an effective retention or rotation mechanism, consuming substantial disk capacity.
Immediate Remediation
Once we identified the source, we coordinated a temporary remediation to recover disk capacity while preserving potentially useful diagnostic information.
We backed up the accumulated log files before removing the unnecessary local copies, freeing disk space and helping restore consistent service operation.
We then verified that disk utilization had returned to an acceptable level and that the immediate capacity issue was resolved.
Permanent Resolution
Recognizing that deleting the files would only provide temporary relief, we worked with the Oracle DB Engineering team to address the underlying cause.
Together, we coordinated the implementation of log rotation to prevent uncontrolled accumulation of historical logs. This introduced a sustainable mechanism for managing log growth and retention rather than relying on repeated manual cleanup.
Outcome
The incident was resolved through a combination of immediate capacity recovery and longer-term corrective action.
The investigation demonstrated the value of systematically narrowing down a problem, distinguishing symptoms from root causes, and collaborating across infrastructure and application teams to implement a lasting solution.
Technical competencies demonstrated: Linux administration, filesystem troubleshooting, disk utilization analysis, IOPS monitoring, log management, incident response, root cause analysis, and cross-functional collaboration.