Large files are created automatically on the server

[ingenia]

Hi,

I have Alfresco Community Edition 5.2 installed on Centos 7.

Large files are created automatically on the server but I cannot identify what it is due to.

Examples:

store://2020/10/8/12/27/e5be0d81-fa05-46b2-a4b0-13d8462d0dac.bin 524Mb
store://2020/10/8/12/31/6addee9c-8308-4249-9dda-db9cd5210ec9.bin 524Mb
store://2020/10/8/12/40/9a367fb0-95d0-416d-9a77-1e74b75c24ad.bin 524Mb
store://2020/10/8/12/58/e86d6bc9-c749-4fe8-8a25-3e58d9b70c89.bin 524Mb

Through queries to the database I have been able to identify that these 4 are created by the same user. But they are not always created by the same user.

Little by little the size of these files grows. Currently they are creating 524Mb but the previous month they only occupied 500Mb.

In short, every month, without uploading new documentation or creating document versions, my database grows several GBs.

How can I see what kind of files it is? How can I avoid it?

Thanks in advance.

[EddieMay]

Hi @ingenia 

You may find this document useful. This Hub post will also help.

Take care,

[kaynezhang]

You can find this document information by executing following db sql

SELECT n.id AS "Node ID",
n.store_id AS "Store ID",
round(u.content_size/1024/1024,2) AS "Size (MB)",
n.uuid AS "Document ID (UUID)",
n.audit_creator AS "Creator",
n.audit_created AS "Creation Date",
n.audit_modifier AS "Modifier",
n.audit_modified AS "Modification Date",
p1.string_value AS "Document Name",
u.content_url AS "Location"
FROM alf_node AS n,
alf_node_properties AS p,
alf_node_properties AS p1,
alf_namespace AS ns,
alf_qname AS q,
alf_content_data AS d,
alf_content_url AS u
WHERE n.id=p.node_id
AND ns.id=q.ns_id
AND p.qname_id=q.id
AND p.long_value=d.id
AND d.content_url_id=u.id
AND p1.node_id=n.id
AND p1.qname_id IN (SELECT id FROM alf_qname WHERE local_name='name')
AND u.content_url='store://2020/10/8/12/58/e86d6bc9-c749-4fe8-8a25-3e58d9b70c89.bin';

For more useful database queries please refer to
https://blog.dbi-services.com/alfresco-some-useful-database-queries/

[ingenia]

Hi, thank you both very much for your answer.

@EddieMay  in my case, the files are in "contentstore". They are not in "contentstore.deleted" or in the trash can.

@kaynezhang  the query does not show any information but if I remove one of the lines from the WHERE:

AND p1.qname_id IN (SELECT id FROM alf_qname WHERE local_name='name')

I get the following result:

As you can see in all cases the "Document name" is NULL minus one that is "DONE".

Any suggestion?

[ingenia]

I have continued researching and have observed how these .bin files correspond to the "shared files" space. Every time a user makes a minor change, a copy of the entire directory is created in the contentstore.

Is it a normal behavior?

There are many users and therefore the free disk space is consumed very quickly.

[EddieMay]

Hi @ingenia 

.bin files are those files uploaded by users & renamed .bin to prevent the recognition of a piece of content from the name/file extension. A database reference is created to that .bin file & associated metadata is stored in the database. When the uploaded file is deleted & then purged, its reference is removed from the database. Any file without a database reference is subsequently moved to the contentstore.deleted directory, where it can be deleted if required (usually after backup has been taken, possibly by a cron job).

My understanding is the folders are not included in .bin files. Therefore, updating a file should not lead to a copy of entire directory being created.  Indeed, metadata updates should not lead to any change to the bin file. So, as far as I can tell from here, what you're observing is not normal behaviour.

Are there any log files that you could show us? Is there any modification to alfresco-global.properties or repository.properties file?

Cheers,

[kaynezhang]

You can try to execute following sql query,and upload your result snapshot here.

        select
            node.id                 as node_id,
            node.version            as node_version,
            prop.qname_id           as qname_id,
            prop.locale_id          as locale_id,
            prop.list_index         as list_index,
            prop.actual_type_n      as actual_type_n,
            prop.persisted_type_n   as persisted_type_n,
            prop.boolean_value      as boolean_value,
            prop.long_value         as long_value,
            prop.float_value        as float_value,
            prop.double_value       as double_value,
            prop.string_value       as string_value,
            prop.serializable_value as serializable_value
      from
            alf_node node
            join alf_node_properties prop on (prop.node_id = node.id)
       where node.id = 28569

[ingenia]

@EddieMay I have checked how the .bin is generated when you click "download as zip". Shouldn't it be removed after downloading? There are many users who use this action.

@kaynezhang The result of the query is:

Thanks.

[kaynezhang · Accepted solution]

Please refer to this post https://hub.alfresco.com/t5/alfresco-content-services-forum/download-as-zip-wastes-disk-space/td-p/3...

It may be helpful to you