The 'du' command

   The du command ( disk usage ) gather and summarize about how much your disk space being used by your file and the disk space being use by directory in the Linux system  The du command can be use to find the size of file and the size of directory in Linux system. The example below show the step to use the du command to get the size of file and the size of directory in Linux Fedora Core system.

Using du command to get file size.

  The du command below show the files size in the current directory in MB or K.

[root@fedora ~]# du -h

4.0K ./.rhopenoffice1.1/program/addin

108K ./.gnome2

28K ./.nautilus/metafiles

32K ./.nautilus

6.0M ./.mozilla/firefox/1wvl2gwo.default/Cache
12K ./.mozilla/firefox/1wvl2gwo.default/chrome

12M .

The output from above command show the size of each file, directory and with the total size used in your system in human readable size ( -h ).

Get the total size of current directory.

   The du command can be use to determine the total size of file in current directory.  The example below show the du command use with -s (summarize) and -h (human readable format) option to summaries the size of disk space taken by current directory.

[root@fedora ~]# du -s

768096 .

[root@fedora ~]# du -sh

751M .

[root@fedora ~]#

To get the size of file and directory in current directory.

[root@fedora ~]# du -sh *

14M 20060524-033-x86.exe

85M labu-punyer

8.0K libjmti.odt

4.0K linux-feeds.txt

4.0K mambo_conf.txt

8.0K yumex-0-1.0.1-1.0.fc5.html

408K yumex-1.0.1-1.0.fc5.noarch.rpm

8.0K yum install

11M zope-2.8.5-1.fc5.i386.rpm

[root@fedora ~]#

Display the size of specific file extension.

   The example below show du command execute with -c option to get the size of each file that have filename ending with .txt and then display grand total of all files in human readable format.

[root@fedora ~]# du -ch *.txt

4.0K create.drupal-2.txt

4.0K create.drupal.db.txt

4.0K drupal-pass.txt

4.0K joomla-bazz.txt

4.0K linux-feeds.txt

4.0K mambo_conf.txt

8.0K msql-bazz.txt

4.0K setup_mysql_mambo.txt

4.0K simple.txt

40K total

[root@fedora ~]#

Check the size of home directory.

   The example below show the use of du command to get the disk usage of each user home directory on the system.

[root@fedora home]# pwd

/home

[root@fedora home]# du -sh *

492K bazz

48K botol

44K hamirul

22M kambing

48K kayu

56K labu

80K sysuser

40K william

40K ycluckers

[root@fedora home]#

To produce grand total of the /home directory size.

[root@fedora home]# pwd

/home

[root@fedora home]# du -csh *

492K bazz

48K botol

44K hamirul

22M kambing

48K kayu

56K labu

80K sysuser

40K william

40K ycluckers

23M total

[root@fedora home]#

The following are some of the flags and arguments that can be used for the du command:

· -a, --all         write counts for all files, not just directories

· --apparent-size         print apparent sizes, rather than disk usage; although the apparent size is usually smaller, it may be larger due to holes in (`sparse') files, internal fragmentation, indirect blocks, and the like

· -B, --block-size=SIZE         use SIZE-byte blocks

· -b, --bytes         equivalent to `--apparent-size --block-size=1'

· -c, --total         produce a grand total

· -D, --dereference-args         dereference FILEs that are symbolic links

· -H like --si, but also evokes a warning; will soon change to be equivalent to --dereference-args (-D)

· -h, --human-readable         print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)

· --si like -h, but use powers of 1000 not 1024

· -k like --block-size=1K

· -l, --count-links count sizes many times if hard linked

· -L, --dereference dereference all symbolic links

· -P, --no-dereference don't follow any symbolic links (this is the default)

· -0, --null end each output line with 0 byte rather than newline

· -S, --separate-dirs do not include size of subdirectories

· -s, --summarize display only a total for each argument

· -x, --one-file-system skip directories on different filesystems

· -X FILE, --exclude-from=FILE Exclude files that match any pattern in FILE.

· --exclude=PATTERN Exclude files that match PATTERN.

· --max-depth=N print the total for a directory (or file, with --all) only if it is N or fewer levels below the command line argument; --max-depth=0 is the same as --summarize

· --help display this help and exit

· --version output version information and exit

NAME

du - estimate file space usage

 Usage: du [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Summarize disk usage of each FILE, recursively for directories.

More information on du command:

# info du

# man du

# du --help