FreeBSD MySql "/var: write failed, filesystem is full"

[Ashok Shrestha]

I am attempting to restore a MySQL Dump of a database. The dump file size is over 4 GB; that is, two of the database tables is over 2 GB.




Code:
#/usr/local/bin/mysql_install_db
#chown -R mysql:mysql /var/db/mysql
#mv /var/db/mysql/ /usr/local/
#ln -s /usr/local/mysql/ /var/db/mysql
#chown -h mysql:mysql /var/db/mysql
#/usr/local/bin/mysqld_safe -user=mysql &
#mysql
mysql>show databases;
+----------+
| Database |
+----------+
| mysql |
| test |
+----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> exit
#mysql < all-databases.dump
(after a long time)
/var: write failed, filesystem is full




I keep receiving an error stating "/var: write failed, filesystem is full".

df shows that the /var size fluctuates for some time, then reaches 100%. It displays "/var: write failed, filesystem is full", then the size of /var returns to 12%. The size of /usr increases until the error is displayed and then it decreases as a snail's pace.

During the time when the size of /var was fluctuating and when it reached 100%, I was consistently using du -h in /var to determine where the increase was occurring; but I was unable to detect any changes in size within /var. Do you know where else MySQL writes to in /var, besides the /var/db/mysql which is a symbolic link?


The mysql restore eats up all of my memory. Top shows
Mem: 77M Active, 313M Inact, 75M Wired, 15M Cache, 59M Buf, 6280K Free


I am using FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun May 8 10:21:06 UTC 2005.

I have:
mysql-client-4.0.24 Multithreaded SQL database (client)
mysql-server-4.0.24 Multithreaded SQL database (server)