sqlite - SQLITE3 VACUUM, "database or disk is full"

Question

I'm trying to run the VACUUM command on my database, but I seem to run out of space:

> sqlite3 mydatabase.db "VACUUM"
Error: database or disk is full

The database is about 36 GB and the drive that I'm running it on looks like (via df -h):

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2       406G  171G  215G  45% /home

So I am clearly above the double size limited needed. What can I do to allow the vacuum command to run?

Answer 1

To allow the VACUUM command to run, change the directory for temporary files to one that has enough free space.

SQLite's documentation says the temporary directory is (in order):

1. whatever is set with the PRAGMA temp_store_directory command; or
2. whatever is set with the SQLITE_TMPDIR environment variable; or
3. whatever is set with the TMPDIR environment variable; or
4. /var/tmp; or
5. /usr/tmp; or
6. /tmp; or
7. ., the current working directory