11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
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Check your disk space use
with the Linux df command
March 23, 2022 Evans Amoany 5-minute read
Linux
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
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Two related commands that every system administrator
runs frequently are df and du . While du reports files' and
directories' disk usage, df reports how much disk space
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your filesystem is using. The df command displays the
amount of disk space available on the filesystem with
each file name's argument.
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
For a good overview of the du command, read Tyler
Carrigan's article Linux commands: du and the options you
should be using. You might also be interested in my article
Make du's output more useful with this neat trick.
This article discusses how to use the df command.
Learn df's syntax
The df command can be run by any user. Like many
Linux commands, df uses the following structure:
df [OPTION]... [FILE]...
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
The df command primarily checks disk usage on a
mounted filesystem. If you don't include a file name, the
output shows the space available on all currently mounted
filesystems. Disk space is shown in 1K blocks by default:
$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Us
devtmpfs 883500 0 883500 0
tmpfs 913840 168 913672
tmpfs 913840 9704 904136
tmpfs 913840 0 913840 0
/dev/map[...] 17811456 7193312 10618144 4
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
/dev/sda1 1038336 260860 777476 2
tmpfs 182768 120 182648
Lists of long numbers (as shown above) can be difficult to
parse. If you want to run df in its human-readable
format, use the --human-readable ( -h for short) option:
$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted o
devtmpfs 863M 0 863M 0% /dev
tmpfs 893M 168K 893M 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 893M 9.5M 883M 2% /run
tmpfs 893M 0 893M 0% /sys/fs
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
/dev/map[...] 17G 6.9G 11G 41% /
/dev/sda1 1014M 255M 760M 26% /boot
tmpfs 179M 120K 179M 1% /run/us
Get inodes
To show inode (or index node) use on each mounted
filesystem, use --inodes ( -i for short):
$ df -ih
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mount
devtmpfs 216K 393 216K 1% /dev
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
tmpfs 224K 3 224K 1% /dev/
tmpfs 224K 857 223K 1% /run
tmpfs 224K 17 224K 1% /sys/f
/dev/map[...] 8.5M 168K 8.4M 2% /
/dev/sda1 512K 310 512K 1% /boot
tmpfs 224K 74 224K 1% /run/
[ Learn about Bash's rich features by downloading the
Bash shell scripting cheat sheet. ]
Get total available space
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
To omit entries that aren't essential to available space and
get a total, use the --total option. You can use this
option when all mounted filesystems are on the same disk,
whether physical or virtual:
$ df -h --total
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted
devtmpfs 863M 0 863M 0% /dev
tmpfs 893M 168K 893M 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 893M 9.5M 883M 2% /run
tmpfs 893M 0 893M 0% /sys/fs
/dev/map[...] 17G 6.9G 11G 41% /
/dev/sda1 1014M 255M 760M 26% /boot
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
tmpfs 179M 120K 179M 1% /run/us
total 22G 7.2G 15G 33% -
If you want to omit all mount points except for the total,
use grep alongside a regular expression with ^ to search
for the total at the start of a line:
$ df -h --total|grep ^total
total 22G 7.2G 15G 33% -
Get disk space available on a
specific mount
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
You can also run df on a specific mount point:
$ df -h /
Filesystem Size Used Avail U
/dev/mapper/centos-stream 17G 6.9G 11G 4
$ df -h /boot
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted
/dev/sda1 1014M 255M 760M 26% /boot
Customize your output
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
The examples I've demonstrated so far have the same
columns in the output. If you want different output, you
can customize the fields. For instance, suppose you don't
want to see the size or amount of disk used:
$ df -h --output=source,avail,pcent,target
Filesystem Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 863M 0% /dev
tmpfs 893M 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 883M 2% /run
tmpfs 893M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/map[...] 11G 41% /
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11/21/24, 6:46 PM Check your disk space use w ith the Linux df command
/dev/sda1 760M 26% /boot
tmpfs 179M 1% /run/user/1000
You can read about the available field options on the info
page and the man page.
[ You may also be interested in downloading the Curl
command cheat sheet. ]
Use df
It's a good idea to use the df command regularly to
monitor usage on critical mount points. These are the
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ways I typically use the command, so find your favorite
options and start gathering data about your system.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Evans Amoany
I work as Unix/Linux
Administrator with a passion for
high availability systems and
clusters. I am a student of
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performance and optimization
of systems and DevOps. I have
passion for anything IT related
and most importantly
automation, high availability,
and security.
Read full bio
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