Hi,
Our monitoring agent just threw up a disk space warning on our Moodle server, and when I investigated I found that the /moodledata subfolder was filling up rapidly.
To find out which files were causing the probem, I ran the following and got the below result:
mysql> SELECT DISTINCT filename, FORMAT( (filesize /1024 /1024), 1 ) AS filesize_MB, contenthash, component
-> FROM `mdl_files`
-> ORDER BY filesize DESC
-> LIMIT 0 , 50;
+-----------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------+-----------+
| filename | filesize_MB | contenthash | component |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------+-----------+
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131204-2332.mbz | 310.5 | a39543a018ec010a9fa78e657d012c9a855aa090 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131204-1012.mbz | 310.5 | e78a2ef07af3c859a7f9f0c1e6175e0233812471 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131205-2331.mbz | 310.5 | ca257923713bea4d5a9da4d066396616704a3d13 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131202-2331.mbz | 310.5 | d0dd39ee500dd10a18d1662d9d4208789f47aa85 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131129-2331.mbz | 310.5 | f048da54bad4c830d517b230b88c4932fba7736e | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131130-2331.mbz | 310.5 | fda1740fca1eef97a33be8f79feb065cb9c7743e | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131201-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 4d2d137e81f2a8c7bd2085fa68bea51d133b042b | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131128-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 92355633f69a152faa1701e6351820461bc9bee6 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131125-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 1744a6cf0d069c3f9fa8ee98d23f8853413d4f5d | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131127-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 3891e2b935dc22e13f10af30b4821d10fc900ad1 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131126-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 2d2eb1ccdf44b80416efbd5fa58e7393c78dfd75 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131115-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 898b54a8786654d3323d776d69894e53b919ae09 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131116-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 52e874a40841fb1cb6388cf4bb2452daffa8fc6b | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131117-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 0dd4594aa0a1324226ae6c8b94092eb64a5e4aed | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131119-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 83776b545eb6111efa369aad9e70901fadd72729 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131120-2331.mbz | 310.5 | f840affafa4329a3cf43bbeed4d579529676b624 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131114-2331.mbz | 310.5 | dc6e976e836609040e6f5c8f70efebdc17ce767b | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131113-2331.mbz | 310.5 | d53e2ebb70633ef602263597bd0343fb0e044f04 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131118-2331.mbz | 310.5 | e69d3562021e40c079d3f03a15416c0eac01b5f3 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131112-2331.mbz | 310.5 | a1a68fbf4c90aaf7da8fe70e0d2a6c5aefc1387a | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131121-2331.mbz | 310.5 | e58c2d994b1d4ae3e468efefb3bb4bc53cff9273 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131123-2332.mbz | 310.5 | f62b1d0adbb5d3abe55a674319f3595a0833569e | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131124-2331.mbz | 310.5 | f0bda7b1380667a9646c3b2a96cb7f8c3a28c91a | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131122-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 2bc6b49684748e27d04458c589faf96a22945c1b | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131111-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 13ecbd8888c46b14e3e671e203576f65da7c1cda | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131108-2331.mbz | 310.5 | c61ee865f8a03b0530d4b87b2affed35e07ac9c5 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131109-2331.mbz | 310.5 | f6d90b1559da00e1efab9de393b44eb27520f83e | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131110-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 4b8185d86d17810ef5c3b62935c2bc6a2a57648f | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131107-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 7276a1f1ff724e3ef891bf237c26864d6fe7c49b | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131106-2331.mbz | 310.5 | ca785f1fd234c8dc47fc2082479a071288846c3f | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131105-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 574ad526758d1422b6d43ac7169528a226eb28a4 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131102-2331.mbz | 310.5 | bf2a412199a231d9c12051032fdf47097540d5dd | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131101-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 5d4214457971c33ffaa21a32f0d5964f37eef199 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131103-2331.mbz | 310.5 | c06ab053a98a14c2ec2d7b3e6f3cd58ab2a018b0 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131104-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 976e033122f01c07856787656e15ec6cd1b4713e | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131030-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 51e91b4dfd5d9b504fba197bafcd3d503ce0a504 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131031-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 026af8f7f2838eead526b1e95409ebeaa3a59864 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131029-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 8af3ce8c1f4aa1ccde66be641a3b09dbfc361b04 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131028-2331.mbz | 310.5 | 63ebd5884a27bd6d3e9e502d969dcc07c5e302f4 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131026-0031.mbz | 310.5 | a474c3f3cb2a02b9ea2c581e502186876398d9db | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131027-2331.mbz | 310.5 | d02806efb40836af3f97861414769bf0be3c7b83 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131027-0031.mbz | 310.5 | 0b71820747d9086e2754e175639e9d3bb915d44a | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131025-0031.mbz | 310.5 | 9619aa63c472cf6c1a60179da1c503e5151f1d94 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131024-0031.mbz | 310.5 | 748b89a48968b6a368a9a0ea93f95324ac57d6bf | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131023-0031.mbz | 310.5 | 2b54159d82ed0d2bff498c2587d6a6931dff4ce3 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131019-0031.mbz | 310.5 | d1c5a04e2cb2f884d62f14543e37ecfb79a775c6 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131020-0031.mbz | 310.5 | 1e4e903b3fb8fae77a4fdd70bc6084ea1304c15d | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131021-0031.mbz | 310.5 | c04dd58f46cf3f7e6deef6e8211bb9d731e925e5 | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131022-0031.mbz | 310.5 | c4437fc76c707ec8a7ace30456fb2c506d5eca7d | backup |
| backup-moodle2-course-101-vat_directive-20131013-0031.mbz | 310.5 | 908b3aba1804c9ef3e2b12957a66a98da01bd387 | backup |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+-------------+------------------------------------------+-----------+
It seems that the problem is being caused by backup configuration. Backups for this course don't need to be stored for such a long time.
Is there any way I can tell Moodle in future to delete backups that are older than say, three days? Is there any way I can tell it to delete the existing backups that are older than three days as well?
I have checked the backup admin settings at <settings -> courses -> backups -> automated backup setup>, and "Keep" is set to 2, which to my mind should mean only two days worth of backups get kept (as backups are taken daily). Is something going wrong here?
Thanks,
David