DevOpsInterviewPrep logo
Incident Response & Production Debugging / 60
mediumNewAmazon & AWSIBMTCS

df says the disk is full, du says half of it is free, and deleting the log did not help. Explain it.

Two commands disagreeing is the diagnosis, not the mystery. A deleted file with an open handle is invisible to du and fully charged by df, and rm made it worse rather than better.

Updated Sep 2026 · Grounded in researched DevOps, SRE and platform engineering interview loops, written to a senior-engineer editorial bar, and never padded to hit a word count.

Two commands disagreeing is the diagnosis, not the mystery. A deleted file with an open handle is invisible to du and fully charged by df, and rm made it worse rather than better.

28 answers per topic instead of 18, and your progress kept · no cardor unlock all 386 remaining answers · ₹2,000 / $25
UP NEXT ON YOUR JOURNEY
DISCUSSION · 0

Nothing here yet. Say how you would answer it.