# Disk space got full cause of error.log and shards are failing to initialize
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [November 23, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895 "2017-11-23T13:36:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kostas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kostas)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/1 "2017-11-23T13:36:17Z")
I'm new to elastic and i would appreciate any help. I have a problem that lies to the error.log file, which size has become enormous and the shards are failing to initialize.
Could you please direct me to the right direction in order to solve the problem and also to the way to take precaution in order for the problem to not appear again? I am in development environment right now but it would be great to take measures in order to avoid such problems when i go to production.
---
### Author:  [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/2 "2017-11-23T13:57:46Z")
The first thing to do IMO is to get the first lines of your logs when it started to fail
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### Author:  [@Vitaly\_il](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vitaly_il)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/3 "2017-11-23T15:38:28Z")
From sysadmin's point of view I'll suggest:
- Activate logrotate by size and add logrotate into hourly cron
- Separate log partition from data one
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### Author:  [@Kostas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kostas)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/4 "2017-11-24T13:41:49Z")
First i compressed the error.log file and shards started working. Then i checked logrotate by size and i added a file with the text below :
/var/log/nginx/elasticsearch/error.log {
maxsize 1G
minsize 1G
hourly
rotate 1
compress
notifempty
postrotate
find /var/log/nginx/elasticsearch -name "error.log.\*.gz" -mtime +30 -delete
endscript
}
and as i can see it works perfectly. It compresses the error.log file if it's size is greater than 1G and this check is done every hour. Thank you very much Vitaly\_il!!
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### Author:  [@Vitaly\_il](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vitaly_il)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2017, 6:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/5 "2017-11-26T06:57:13Z")
Kostas,
my pleasure; but I strongly suggest to check the reason such big logs - it seems be either serious elastic issue or too high loglevel.
Vitaly
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### Author:  [@Kostas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Kostas)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/6 "2017-11-27T14:09:24Z")
It seems that every time i make a request to my site error.log fills up 200-400kb and when i read the log i see that 97% of the messages are "debug" type. Should i stop loggin these debug messages and how would i do that?? Are they important/usefull?
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### Author:  [@Vitaly\_il](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vitaly_il)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/7 "2017-11-27T14:46:32Z")
I suggest to decrease loglevel to "INFO" or even "WARN".
Usually it's in /etc/elasticsearch/log4j2.properties, see [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/5.6/settings.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/5.6/settings.html) for more.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/disk-space-got-full-cause-of-error-log-and-shards-are-failing-to-initialize/108895/8 "2017-12-25T14:47:05Z")
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