inode - Can I delete files in nginx client_body_temp directory?

On my nginx server, I can't login to my wordpress site. The error log mentions " No space left on device".

2014/09/26 02:02:05 [crit] 1197#0: *32 open() "/usr/local/nginx/client_body_temp/0030999742" failed (28: No space left on device)

There is space but I found that my inode usage was 100%

I have tracked down the ridiculous amount of files to /usr/local/nginx/client_body_temp where there are too many files to count.

So my question is: what is this directory for, and can I delete these files?

Answer

what is this directory (/usr/local/nginx/client_body_temp/) for?

The directory was used to save buffered temporary file from client request body. Normally the temporary file inside the directory was used to buffer request body that larger than client_body_buffer_size. And normally the file was removed after nginx has finished process the request.

Other use of that directory is to debug client request body. When you set client_body_in_file_only on;, nginx will save the body to those directory. But, in this case nginx won't remove them. You can use client_body_in_file_only clean; for clean the temporal files or disable it with client_body_in_file_only off;

and can I delete these files?

Yes, you can safely remove those files.