[gentoo-user] /var/log/messages is huge

[dhk <dhkuhl@optonline.net>]

Last week I got a message the my /var partition was almost full.  Since
it was 10G and I am using lvm2 I added 5G more to it.  This evening I
got the same message, now I had to investigate.  When I did I found that
/var/log/messages is huge.

# ls -lh /var/log/messages
-rw------- 1 root root 12G Aug 16 20:15 /var/log/messages

It seem to be constantly written to and growing.

# ls -l /var/log/messages
-rw------- 1 root root 11986603021 Aug 16 20:20 /var/log/messages
# ls -l /var/log/messages
-rw------- 1 root root 11986687279 Aug 16 20:20 /var/log/messages
# ls -l /var/log/messages
-rw------- 1 root root 11986759997 Aug 16 20:21 /var/log/messages
# ls -l /var/log/messages
-rw------- 1 root root 11986783403 Aug 16 20:21 /var/log/messages
# ls -l /var/log/messages
-rw------- 1 root root 11986830215 Aug 16 20:21 /var/log/messages

When I tail it I get the following.
# tail /var/log/messages
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: -- transfer complete
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: Bulk command transfer result=0
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: Attempting to get CSW...
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: usb_stor_bulk_transfer_buf:
xfer 13 bytes
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: Status code 0; transferred 13/13
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: -- transfer complete
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: Bulk status result = 0
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: Bulk Status S 0x53425355 T
0x5c33 R 0 Stat 0x0
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: scsi cmd done, result=0x0
Aug 16 20:22:59 host kernel: usb-storage: *** thread sleeping.

What's going on here?  Why all these usb-storage messages?

I don't know exactly when this started, but I'm guessing it has to do
with a recent upgrade.

I also thought there's suppose to be some sort of log rotation going on
to prevent this.

Any ideas?

Right now I'm going to "cat /dev/null > /var/log/messages" so I can boot
up in the morning.

Now my /var dropped to 16%.

Thanks,

dhk