One thing that many Linux/Unix users do not know is that all commonly used filesystems have a "reserved" amount of space to which only "root" can write. The ty

One thing that many Linux/Unix users do not know is that all commonly used filesystems have a "reserved" amount of space to which only "root" can write. The typical format (mkfs) default is to leave 5% of the disk reserved. The reserved space can be modified (by root) any time, and it can be specified as a block count or a percentage. As long as your application does not have root privileges, it will hit the wall when the free+reserved space runs out. Instead of the clumsy "spacer.img" solution, one could simply (temporarily) reduce the reserved space to quickly recover from a disk full condition.