bash No space left on device

Question

On VPS when I press tab under my user I get:

bash: cannot create temp file for here-document: No space left on device

but it works fine under root, what's happening?

Solution

As you press tab certain/specific script(s) is/are launched
(several can be defined, which one that gets launched depends on the command currently typed at the prompt).
These scripts often use temporary files in /tmp

The login where you see this has either ran out of space in /tmp (e.g. quota), alternatively has no quota at all, or the script is (erroneously?) attempting to write/handle too large data.

Generally root has more quota or no limits.

sudo -i
cd /tmp
du -h | sort -n | less

should display what there is in /tmp and the space it occupies.

Also:

df -h --output=source,target,ipcent,pcent
Filesystem     Mounted on     IUse%  Use%
...

should, in a "normal" situation not have high numbers under the Use%-columns, for either /tmp or tmpfs (which there is, depends on system setup).

Comments

[nKn]

df -h should help as well

[Hannu]

Reverted, tmpfs might be in use - /tmp in RAM. Thanks for reminding @Daniel B