I did a fresh install of ubuntu server 12.04 as a KVM virtual guest. I used a kickstart file to automate the installation, I've included the command to create the guest as well as the partitioning section of the kickstart file. These numbers were taken right after a fresh installation the only main service that is running is an ssh server. There is 7GB of disk usage that I can't account for.
Kickstart partitioning section
part /boot --fstype ext4 --size 200
part / --fstype ext4 --size 1 --grow
KVM installation command
virt-install -n bigtest -r 4096
--disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/bigtest.img,bus=virtio,size=500 \
-c ubuntu-12.04.1-server-amd64.iso --accelerate
--network=bridge:br0 --connect=qemu:///system \
--vnc --noautoconsole -v --os-type linux
disk usage
Running df and du reports different disk usages, which I understand can happen. The difference though of 8G vs 512M is about 7G.
root@ubuntu:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda5 500G 8.0G 467G 2% /
udev 2.0G 4.0K 2.0G 1% /dev
tmpfs 792M 220K 791M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /run/shm
/dev/vda1 188M 34M 146M 19% /boot
root@ubuntu:~# du -hs /
512M /
Small Guest Test
In the guest called bigtest the virtual disk was 500GB. When I create another guest called smalltest with a virtual disk of size 10GB, the numbers for df and du are 764M and 512M.
KVM host reports
Now if we look at the size of the kvm image files on the host file system we get another interesting story.
root@vbox1:/var/lib/libvirt/images# du -hs *
753M bigtest.img
744M smalltest.img
Reserved filesystem blocks
Just to rule out other stuff as much as possible all these numbers were taken after I set the reserved blocks percentage to 0%.
root@ubuntu:~# tune2fs -m 0 /dev/vda5
tune2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Setting reserved blocks percentage to 0% (0 blocks)
The Question
What is taking up this 7GB of physical space. If it is used why isn't that being reflected in the host file system disk usage.
UPDATE 1
I discovered something very interesting. If you I run the following commands and reboot the new numbers for df and du are 1.1G and 875M! which are within normal expectations.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade
Here are a few observations I made about this:
- After a fresh install I tried rebooting many times it didn't change the 8GB usage
- running apt-get update and upgrade don't reduce the disk usage, even with reboots.
- only when the kernel is updated with apt-get dist-upgrade, and even then only after the system has rebooted with the new kernel will the usage drop back to normal levels.
UPDATE 2
I've tested this independently in virtualbox and this same exact behaviour happens. So this issue is related to Ubuntu Server and not anything specifically related to KVM or virtualbox.
UPDATE 3
Some additional commands run on the machine as suggested in an answer below.
root@ubuntu:/# du --apparent-size -sh --exclude=/proc /
963M /
using ncdu
ncdu 1.8 ~ Use the arrow keys to navigate, press ? for help
--- / ----------------------------------------------------------------
230.6MiB [##########] /usr
202.4MiB [######## ] /lib
193.0MiB [######## ] /var
23.7MiB [# ] /boot
8.6MiB [ ] /bin
6.7MiB [ ] /sbin
4.9MiB [ ] /etc
220.0KiB [ ] /run
28.0KiB [ ] /root
20.0KiB [ ] /opt
e 16.0KiB [ ] /lost+found
8.0KiB [ ] /media
4.0KiB [ ] /dev
4.0KiB [ ] /lib64
e 4.0KiB [ ] /tmp
e 4.0KiB [ ] /srv
e 4.0KiB [ ] /selinux
e 4.0KiB [ ] /mnt
e 4.0KiB [ ] /home
0.0 B [ ] /proc
0.0 B [ ] /sys
@ 0.0 B [ ] initrd.img
@ 0.0 B [ ] vmlinuz
Total disk usage: 670.2MiB Apparent size: 128.0TiB Items: 54464
The Linux kernel versions before and after the dist-upgrade are as follows:
Linux ubuntu 3.2.0-29-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 27 17:03:23 UTC 2012
Linux ubuntu 3.2.0-30-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 24 16:52:48 UTC 2012
