"Unexpected Error: disk I/O" When Creating or Editing a Policy/Category

Overview

When you are trying to create or edit a policy or category in the Policy Manager, you might get the error below. This article explains how to resolve it.

Unexpected Error: disk I/O error.

Root Cause Analysis

This happens when the Policy Manager cannot write to the /var partition. The most likely reason for this inability to write to the partition is that the disk is full. In the PeerApp systems, when enabled, the folder /var/log/peerapp/ can contain a big list of compressed log files.

Solution

1. Access the server SSH console.

2. Log in as root, using the su - command.

3. Verify the status of the /var partition using the command below:

   df -h /var

   The output should be similar to the one below, showing a 100% use.

   Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
   /dev/sda3             36G   36G    0   100% /var

4. Go to the logs partition, using the command below:

   cd /var/log/

5. Check for the space used by entering the following command:

   du --max-depth=1 -h

6. Delete or compress old files.

   • To compress old logs, e.g., from July 2019, use the following command:

     cd var/log/peerapp/
     tar -czvf peerapp_system_2019.07.tgz peerapp_system_2019.07.* --remove-files

   • To delete old logs, e.g., older than 60 days, you can verify which files should be removed.

     find /var/log/peerapp/* -mtime +60 -exec ls -alh {} \;

     If the files are not necessary, delete them.

     find /var/log/peerapp/* -mtime +60 -exec rm -f {} \;

Confirmation

Run the following command to verify there is free space in the /var partition. 

df -h

Once the free space has been verified, the issue is resolved.

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