Done.

Thanks. It looks like my /var/log directory is 24GB. Inside that it claims apache2 is 24 GB but can’t seem to list its contents or change directory into it. The following is the contents of the /var/log directory.

alternatives.log       dpkg.log.2.gz    pm-powersave.log
alternatives.log.1     faillog          pm-powersave.log.1
alternatives.log.2.gz  fontconfig.log   pm-powersave.log.2.gz
apache2                fsck             samba
apt                    gpu-manager.log  speech-dispatcher
auth.log               hp               syslog
auth.log.1             installer        syslog.1
auth.log.2.gz          kern.log         syslog.2.gz
auth.log.3.gz          kern.log.1       syslog.3.gz
auth.log.4.gz          kern.log.2.gz    syslog.4.gz
boot.log               kern.log.3.gz    syslog.5.gz
bootstrap.log          kern.log.4.gz    syslog.6.gz
btmp                   landscape        syslog.7.gz
btmp.1                 lastlog          udev
cups                   lightdm          ufw.log
dbconfig-common        mysql            ufw.log.1
dist-upgrade           mysql.err        ufw.log.2.gz
dmesg                  mysql.log        ufw.log.3.gz
dmesg.0                mysql.log.1.gz   ufw.log.4.gz
dmesg.1.gz             mysql.log.2.gz   unattended-upgrades
dmesg.2.gz             mysql.log.3.gz   upstart
dmesg.3.gz             mysql.log.4.gz   wtmp
dmesg.4.gz             mysql.log.5.gz   wtmp.1
dpkg.log               mysql.log.6.gz   Xorg.0.log
dpkg.log.1             mysql.log.7.gz   Xorg.0.log.old

asb’s suggestion is a good one to consider if you’re struggling to keep a handle on log files, although a 24GB log file is a bit large…

What do you mean you can’t change directory to it? Is it giving an error?

What happens when you type

cd /var/log/apache2

ls -al

Perhaps the directory won’t let you list the contents unless you’re root? If you’re on ubuntu that means using sudo

cd /var/log/apache2

sudo ls -al

If you find the file thats massive and want to remove it, remove with the rm command

rm filename

Again, you’ll need to do this as root, which means using sudo

sudo rm filename

Linux doesn’t rely on file extensions as much as windows, so sometimes a file will be without an extension, which makes it appear as a directory. This also means you might confuse a directory for a file and try to edit it, wondering why it isn’t working. Using ls with some colour can help you with that.

ls --color

Directories usually show in dark blue, system links in light blue and files do not have any colour - they just show the standard console colour. Note: the –color command cannot be used as –colour, must be the American spelling.

Let me know any error messages you have, we’ll see if we can work it out :-)

I get:
-bash: cd: /var/log/apache2: Permission denied

when trying to cd to apache2

Weird

Try

sudo cd /var/log/apache2

You can append sudo to the start of commands to execute them as an administrator (root). Please be VERY careful about what you start as the root user, it can have massive security implications.