Linux: df: cannot read table of mounted file systems

by Ali on Apr.20, 2009, under Linux

“df -l” returned an error: “df: cannot read table of mounted file systems”. I looked at my “/etc/mtab” file – empty! I did a “fdisk -l” and saw my partitions there, then proceeded to create a new mtab from my /proc/mount:
grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab

Error message: no space left on the device!

Ran out of room… my SQL dumps are taking a lot of space 🙁 Freed up some space and executed the command again – df is now returning what it’s supposed to return.

To the extent possible under law, the creator has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

8 Comments for this entry

nexus
February 9th, 2010 on 10:51 AM
wow, thanks.. working again 😀

Reply
s0l0m4n
January 11th, 2011 on 10:45 PM
I type a command but getting an error : grep: write error: No space left on device.

How can I do ?

Thanks.

Reply
- Ali
  January 14th, 2011 on 2:09 PM
  Do a df -l and check your partitions, one should say 100% used – clean it up.
  
  Reply
Lalo
April 19th, 2011 on 7:35 PM
Thank you sir, helped me while trying to rescue the old grub 🙂

Reply
csw
October 31st, 2011 on 9:42 AM
Spot on thanks!

Reply
linux admin
March 26th, 2013 on 4:42 PM
Perfect, it worked instantly with Centos 6 and cpanel.

Thanks!

Reply
wrds
October 14th, 2013 on 8:40 PM
very helpful! thanks!

Reply
Tom
November 23rd, 2013 on 10:03 AM
Thanks. This was really helpful

Reply