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How Do I Recover Access to a Vultr Compute Instance at 100% Disk Usage?

Updated on 15 September, 2025

Guide to regaining access to a Vultr instance when disk space is completely full, preventing logins and normal operation

If you’re unable to log in to your Vultr Compute Instance even after using the web console the issue may be caused by 100% disk usage. When disk space is full, services may fail to start, login sessions can be blocked, and even plan resizing may not succeed until space is freed.

Warning
Do not resize your instance before following this guide. When there is no remaining disk space, resizing the disk may not correctly update the filesystem, potentially making the issue worse.

Follow the steps below to mount the SystemRescue ISO and free up some space:

Boot the Instance Using SystemRescue ISO

  1. Log in to the Vultr Customer Portal.
  2. Navigate to Compute under the Products section.
  3. Select the instance you want to recover.
  4. Click Settings, then select Custom ISO.
  5. Under the ISO Library, choose the SystemRescue ISO and click Attach ISO and Reboot.
  6. Open the web console by clicking the View Console icon on the instance information page.
  7. In the console, press Enter to boot into the default SystemRescue kernel.

Chroot into the Root Volume

Follow these steps to manually mount the root disk and access your instance's file system:

  1. List the attached block devices to identify the root partition.

    console 
    # lsblk

    Output:

    NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0    7:0    0 647.7M  1 loop /run/archiso/sfs/airootfs
sr0     11:0    1   720M  0 rom  /run/archiso/bootmnt
vda    253:0    0   180G  0 disk 
├─vda1 253:1    0   260M  0 part
└─vda2 253:2    0 179.7G  0 part

  2. Mount the root block device (e.g., /dev/vda2) to the /mnt directory.

    console 
    # mount /dev/vda2 /mnt

    Replace /dev/vda2 with the correct partition name from your instance if different.

  3. Change the root path to enter your instance environment.

    console 
    # chroot /mnt

Disk CleanUp

  1. To identify which directories are consuming the most space, run.

    console 
    # du -h --max-depth=1 /var

    Output:

    4.3G    /var/lib
261M    /var/cache
298M    /var/log
4.8G    /var

    Repeat the command in other directories (/home, /usr, etc.) to investigate space usage further.

  2. Run the below command to list large files by size.

    console 
    # ls -larSh /var/log/

    This shows all files in /var/log/, sorted in descending order of size.

  3. After you have verified the large files and folders, use the below commands to remove then from the server.

  • To delete a file:

    console 
    # rm /path/to/unneeded/file

  • To delete a directory:

    console 
    # rm -rf /path/to/directory
Note
Avoid deleting essential system files. Focus on old logs, cache files, or temporary data in /var/log/, /var/cache/, or /tmp.

  1. After you have freed up some disk space in your server, exit the chroot environment.

    console 
    # exit

  2. Reboot the server.

    console 
    # reboot

  3. Detach the ISO from the instance in the Custom ISO section.

  4. After the instance reboots, you should be able to log in normally via SSH or the web console.