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Check disk usage in Linux Don Watkins Thu, 07/07/2022 - 03:00 1 reader likes this 1 reader likes this

Knowing how much of your disk is being used by your files is an important consideration, no matter how much storage you have. My laptop has a relatively small 250GB NVME drive. That's okay most of the time, but I began to explore gaming on Linux a couple of years ago. Installing Steam and a few games can make storage management more critical.

The du command

The easiest way to examine what's left for storage on your disk drive is the du command. This command line utility estimates file space usage. Like all Linux tools, du is very powerful, but knowing how to use it for your particular needs is helpful. I always consult the man page for any utility. This specific tool has several switches to give you the best possible snapshot of file storage and how much space they consume on your system.

There are many options for the du command. Here are some of the common ones:

• -a - write counts for all files and not just directories
• --apparent-size - prints apparent sizes rather than disk usage
• -h - human-readable format
• -b - bytes
• -c -grand total
• -k - block size
• -m - size in megabytes

Be sure to check the du man page for a complete listing.

More Linux resources Linux commands cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Free online course: RHEL technical overview Linux networking cheat sheet SELinux cheat sheet Linux common commands cheat sheet What are Linux containers? Our latest Linux articles Display all files

The first option you could choose is du -a. It provides a readout of all files on your system and the directories they are stored in. This command lets me know I've got 11555168 bytes stored in my home directory. Using du -a provides a quick recursive look at my storage system. What if I want a more meaningful number, and I want to drill down into the directories to see where the big files are on my system?

I think there are some big files in my Downloads directory, so I enter du -a /home/don/Downloads to get a good look at that Downloads directory.

$ du -a ~/Downloads
4923    ./UNIX_Driver_5-0/UNIX Driver 50
4923    ./UNIX_Driver_5-0
20     ./epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm
12    ./rpmfusion-free-release-9.noarch.rpm
2256    ./PZO9297 000 Cover.pdf
8    ./pc.md
2644    ./geckodriver-v0.31.0-linux64.tar.gz
466468  

The numbers on the far left are the file sizes in bytes. I want something more helpful to me so I add the switch for the human-readable format to my du -h /home/don/Downloads command. The result is 4.8 G(igabytes) which is a more useful number format for me.

$ du -ah ~/Downloads
4.9M    ./UNIX_Driver_5-0/UNIX Driver 50
4.9M    ./UNIX_Driver_5-0
20K    ./epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm
12K    ./rpmfusion-free-release-9.noarch.rpm
2.2M    ./PZO9297 000 Cover.pdf
8.0K    ./pc.md
2.6M    ./geckodriver-v0.31.0-linux64.tar.gz
456M    .

As with most Linux commands, you can combine options. To look at your Downloads directory in a human-readable format, use the du -ah ~/Downloads command.

[ Read also: 5 Linux commands to check free disk space ]

Grand total

The -c option provides a grand total for disk usage at the last line. I can use du -ch /home/don to display every file and directory in my home directory. There is a lot of information, and I really just want what is at the end, so I will pipe the disk usage command to tail. The command is du -ch /home/don | tail.

Image by:

(Don Watkins, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The ncdu command

Another option for Linux users interested in what is stored on their drive is the ncdu command. The command stands for NCurses Disk Usage. Depending on your Linux distribution, you may need to download and install it.

On Linux Mint, Elementary, Pop_OS!, and other Debian-based distributions:

$ sudo apt install ncdu

On Fedora, Mageia, and CentOS:

$ sudo dnf install ncdu

On Arch, Manjaro, and similar:

$ sudo pacman -S ncdu

Once installed, you can use ncdu to analyze your filesystem. Here is a sample output after issuing ncdu inside my home directory. The man page for ncdu states that "ncdu (NCurses Disk Usage) is a curses-based version of the well-known du, and provides a fast way to see what directories are using your disk space."

Image by:

(Don Watkins, CC BY-SA 4.0)

I can use the arrow keys to navigate up and down and press the Enter key to enter a directory. An interesting note is that du reported total disk usage in my home directory as 12GB, and ncdu reports that I have total disk usage of 11GB. You can find more information in the ncdu man page.

You can explore a particular directory by pointing ncdu to that directory. For example, ncdu /home/don/Downloads.

Image by:

(Don Watkins, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Press the ? key to display the Help menu

Image by:

(Don Watkins, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Wrap up

The du and ncdu commands provide two different views of the same information, making it easy to keep track of what's stored on your computer.

If you're not comfortable in the terminal or just looking for yet another view of this kind of information, check out the GNOME Disk Usage Analyzer. You can easily install and use it if it's not already on your system. Check your distribution for baobab and install it if you'd like to experiment.

The du and ncdu commands provide two different views of the same information, making it easy to keep track of what's stored on your computer.

Linux Command line What to read next Replace du with dust on Linux Check used disk space on Linux with du Check free disk space in Linux with ncdu 5 Linux commands to check free disk space This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 3 Comments Register or Login to post a comment. Greg Pittman | July 7, 2022

Your second example doesn't show the right command. It should have been:

du -ah ~/Downloads

I never use du without the -h option. Otherwise, the results are too cryptic to understand.

Don Watkins | July 7, 2022

Good catch Greg! I'll mention that to the editors.

In reply to Your second example doesn't… by Greg Pittman

Robert Harker | July 12, 2022

The -h flag is new to me. I like it. Try adding this alias to your .bashrc file:
alias du='du -h'

I learned the -s flag for summary rather than the -c flag. Easier to remember.

Some du commands I use:

du -sh *
Summarize disk usage for directories and files in the current directory.

du -sh * | sort -n
Sort the size of the directories or files in the current directory.
-n sorts based on numerical value not alphanumeric. -rn reverse the sort order.

du -sh * | sort -n | tail -5
Show the 5 largest directories or files in the current directory.
This is just a summary of the top level files and directories in the current directory.

find . -type f | xargs -d '\n' du -sh * | sort -n | tail -5
Find the 5 largest files in the current directory.
Useful for finding unexpected huge files you were not aware of.
The -d '\n' argument to xargs tells xargs to break arguments on newlines. It avoids problems with filenames with spaces in them.

du was one of the first UNIX commands I learned 45 years ago. An oldie but goodie.

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This post originally appeared on the FINOS blog. You can also listen to the latest FINOS podcast with Minesh Patel, Chief Technology Officer at REGnosys, discussing his upcoming talk at the FINOS Open Source in Finance Forum (OSFF) on July 13th in London about “Breaking new ground in RegTech through open source TechSprint innovation”.

In the first quarter of 2022, a multi-organisation, multi-location team of developers planned, scheduled and delivered an ambitious three day “RegTech” collaboration challenge.

The event, dubbed a “TechSprint”, looked to demonstrate how financial institutions could comply with trade reporting rules for the upcoming US CFTC requirements using entirely open-source components.

Why It’s Important

Every year, the financial industry spends billions trying to comply with often complex data reporting requirements. For every reporting regime and jurisdiction, firms must typically sift through hundreds of pages of legal text, which they must then manually interpret and code in their IT systems.

As a result, while many financial institutions share the same reporting obligations, they usually implement their logic in slightly different ways due to fragmented technology approaches, adding to risks and costs.

The field is ripe for a shake-up by “RegTech”, i.e. the application of technology to address regulatory challenges. In particular, the ability to build and store the reporting logic in an open-source and technology-agnostic way, and to run it based on open-source components too, could reap huge efficiency benefits for the industry.

Current Landscape

This RegTech space is one that FINOS has been actively investing in. In 2020, FINOS approved the contribution of the Regulation Innovation SIG, a Special Interest Group dedicated to the applications of open source to regulatory problems. Morphir, an open-source project contributed by Morgan Stanley, is positioned as a key component of that Reg SIG. Morphir allows to represent, store, share and process business logic in an implementation-agnostic way, including the types of rules and calculations often found in regulations.

The industry is also getting better organised to tackle pressing regulatory challenges more collaboratively. Under the auspices of the industry’s existing trade associations, the Digital Regulatory Reporting (DRR) programme is a mutualized, industry-wide initiative addressing the global trade reporting requirements. Those reporting regimes are being updated across the G20 and DRR starts with the US CFTC revised swap data reporting rules that go live this year. DRR involves industry participants working together to deliver an open-source, machine-executable expression of the reporting rules.

These two initiatives, Morphir and DRR, looked like a perfect match. A like-minded team of developers sitting across organisations decided to undertake the challenge of integrating them, thus demonstrating that reporting rules can be developed, executed and validated using entirely open-source components – all under three days!

Approach

Technical

In DRR, the rule logic is expressed in a Domain-Specific Language called the Rosetta DSL and then translated into executable code through an automated “code generation” process. The reporting rules’ inputs are modelled according to the Common Domain Model (CDM), an initiative initially championed by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), now joined by other trade associations, and involving many industry participants including buy- and sell-side firms.

The Rosetta DSL and its associated code generators, currently being proposed for contribution to FINOS, are open-source projects developed by technology firm REGnosys, which provides the software platform for the DRR and CDM programme.

The main objective of the TechSprint was to develop a Rosetta-to-Morphir code generator. This would demonstrate that Morphir can be used as a target for storing and executing the body of rules in DRR and that it produces results that are consistent with Rosetta. In addition, the TechSprint looked to provide a formal verification mechanism for the DRR code using Bosque, another open-source project developed by Microsoft that is already integrated with Morphir.

Scope

The first trade reporting regime available in DRR is the CFTC Rewrite, which is rolling out in the US this year. The TechSprint focused on handling a couple of CFTC reportable fields to demonstrate the Rosetta-Morphir-Bosque integration.

Logistics

Building on our proven approach seen over the last two years with the Legend pilot and the Legend hosted instance, the event was run as a “task-force” where teams sitting across organisations’ boundaries collaborated and shared knowledge on their respective open-source projects, all under FINOS’s sponsorship.

In total, seven representatives from three teams at Morgan Stanley, Microsoft and REGnosys have worked together for three days across three separate locations in the UK, Ghana and the US.

Given the time zone differences, the TechSprint was held virtually, starting with the UK/Ghana shift and closing with the NY shift. The teams were mostly self-organised, with regular checkpoints throughout the day.

Substantial Results at Record Speed

In just three days, a Rosetta-to-Morphir code generator has been developed successfully. Whilst not complete, it has been shown to handle increasingly complex logic from Rosetta. REGnosys is integrating this deliverable back into Rosetta’s main open-source code-base.

A couple of in-scope reportable fields were successfully tested by running the Morphir-Scala engine on a sample trade population and displayed in a UI, matching their expected results in Rosetta. The Morphir UI showed how the reporting logic stored in Morphir could be represented graphically.

Finally, the Bosque validation layer was successfully applied to the code generated from Rosetta, opening the way to a formal verification method for the rules developed in DRR.

Take-Aways and Next Steps

One of the most interesting take-aways from this TechSprint event was its task-force format, which allowed the teams to perform at their level best. This format could serve as a template for future “open innovation” initiatives engaging the FINOS community.

The key ingredients of success were:

• A specific and tangible deliverable
• Collaboration, not competition, on that shared objective
• Diversity of participants, all goal-oriented
• Clear responsibilities of the different team members
• Careful preparation and planning
• A “safe space” to contribute in open-source

As a next step, the TechSprint team will be demonstrating the result of their work at the upcoming Open Source in Finance Forum in London (July 13th). Those results will be encapsulated into a video that will be made publicly available.

The Morphir-to-Rosetta code generator delivered during the TechSprint is also included in a formal open-source contribution to FINOS. This will create a first bridge between the on-going DRR industry programme and the wider FINOS community, allowing to connect it to similar initiatives taking place under the Reg SIG.

Given interest and community engagement in that group, further open innovation events involving multiple firms could be run along a similar format.

The potential benefits of open collaboration in the regulatory space are massive. This TechSprint demonstrates how new ground can be broken when barriers tumble down.

Authors:

• Leo Labeis, Founder and CEO at REGnosys
• Stephen Goldbaum, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley
• Mark Marron, Principal Research Software Development Engineer at Microsoft

The post Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, and Regnosys Break New Ground in RegTech with FINOS appeared first on Linux Foundation.

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