How can I figure out why my lastlog directory is huge?

[wvalente]

Hi guys,

Why is my lastlog directory so huge?

-rw-r--r--. 1 root   root   **216G** Aug  7 17:35 lastlog

What can I do to reduce it?

Thanks

[dshakespeare_sp]

I believe that lastlog is a sparse file see http://www.noah.org/wiki/Lastlog_is_gigantic

[cpetterborg]

The file should not be that big. Period.

You can't reduce the size without deleting all the data. If you want to delete all the data, don't delete the file, because your system will keep it open and it will stay the same size until you reboot. You can delete the contents of the file with the following command:

cp /dev/null >/var/log/lastlog