dev/rst0 file size large; Not Sure if this is NORMAL?

[dbm7230]

I am trying to cleanup and make sure the systems health and filesystems are maintained properly. I noticed that the tape drive device listed below file size is rather large but I don't know if this is normal. Is there anyway that I can find out? The permissions also shows rw-r--r--; is that correct as well? And can anyone point me to some helpful commands that can be used to properly make sure the system is running smoothly and old files or large files can be removed. Any good scripts out there?

-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 2054144 Nov 14 2002 rst0

Thanks again,
dbm7230

 

[PHV]

AFAIK, /dev/rst0 is not a valid name for a tape.
Anyway, almost all files in the /dev/hierarchy should be block or character devices.
The most likely is that someone typed a wrong backup command in 2002-11-14, ie /dev/rst0 instead of /dev/rct0 (or /dev/rStp0).
What is the output of the following command ?
file /dev/rst0

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[motoslide]

That file isn't all that big, but is probably a left-over mistake from Nov, 2002. You can likely remove it.

The tape drive should have a file in /dev/ very similar to the one you have listed. It might be /dev/rStp0 (very common) or /dev/rct0 or something else. These are pointers to the kernel which deals with the device, and will never have a true "size". Instead, they have Major/Minor numbers in that column, seperated by a comma:

$ l /dev/rStp0
crw-rw-rw- 4 root root 46, 0 Feb 11 01:19 rStp0

Here is a command which will list files larger than 5MB which are older than 180 days. Whether or not these can be removed depends upon YOUR knowledge of the application(s). Tread very carefully.

# find / -size +10000 -mtime +180 -exec ls -l {} \;

 

[dbm7230]

This command is helpful and I am familiar with the applications on the system. Thank you again...