LPIC-1 Devices, Filesystems and FHS Practice Question
You are a system administrator at a hosting company. A customer reports that their website hosted on a shared LAMP server is returning error 500. The server runs Ubuntu 22.04 with Apache, MySQL, and PHP. You log in and find that the /var partition (on /dev/sda3, ext4) is almost full. You identify that the MySQL database directory /var/lib/mysql contains several large binary logs that are no longer needed. You delete the binary logs using 'rm -f /var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.*'. However, the available space does not increase. You also notice that an inode leak is suspected. You check inode usage with 'df -i' and see that the partition has plenty of free inodes. You then check with 'lsof | grep deleted' and see several entries for mysqld holding deleted files. What is the correct procedure to free the space?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume deleting a file immediately frees disk space, overlooking that processes with open file descriptors prevent the kernel from releasing the inode and data blocks until the descriptor is closed.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Restart the MySQL service with 'systemctl restart mysql'.
When a file is deleted while a process (like mysqld) still holds an open file descriptor to it, the file's inode remains allocated and the disk space is not freed until the process releases the descriptor. Restarting the MySQL service (systemctl restart mysql) causes mysqld to close all open file descriptors, allowing the kernel to release the deleted binary logs' inodes and reclaim the disk space.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Restart the MySQL service with 'systemctl restart mysql'.
Why this is correct
Restarting MySQL closes all open file handles, allowing the kernel to release the disk space occupied by deleted files.
- ✗
Use 'dpkg --purge mysql-server' to completely remove MySQL, then reinstall it.
Why it's wrong here
This is drastic and unnecessary; you just need to restart MySQL to release file handles.
- ✗
Run 'e2fsck -f /dev/sda3' to reclaim inodes and fix filesystem inconsistencies.
Why it's wrong here
e2fsck will check the filesystem but cannot close open file handles; space is still consumed.
- ✗
Move the binary logs to a different partition using 'mv /var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin.* /tmp/' and then delete them.
Why it's wrong here
The files were already deleted; mv will fail. The issue is open handles.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This LPIC-1 practice question is part of Courseiva's free LPI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the LPIC-1 exam.