tl;dr Run support > purge from the CLI to delete all temporary files

I recently tried to create a Support file on an ISAM/ISVA virtual appliance, but after a few minutes it failed (“The system failed to create the support file”). I tried a couple more times, and each time it failed with the same error message – but then I noticed that the disk usage was 96%, whereas earlier in the day it had been less than 50%. So presumably, in the process of attempting to generate a Support file, it had been creating lots of other temporary files. How could I clear them out?

First of all, I ran the delete_trace command – the response was “WGAWA0657I Old log files have been purged to reclaim disk space. Disk utilization has been reduced from 96% to 96%.”, so not terribly helpful. Rebooting the virtual appliance did not help, either.

I contacted IBM, who sent me clean_tmp_dir_v3.fixpack: when this fixpack is installed, it clears out the temporary files. (They told me that it can be safely removed and installed again as needed.) It worked for me, but it’s a pain to get the fixpack from IBM (there are different versions, depending on the version of ISAM), and install it etc.

But after that, I discovered that if you use the command line interface, and run support > purge, then it shows a message ‘The system has been cleaned of all temporary files’.
It’s not obvious from the desription of purge, which is ‘Purge the support files from the hard drive’, so you only discover that it cleans out temporary files after you’ve run it, but it’s useful to know that it’s there. (I should maybe add that I tested this with IBM Security Verify Access version 10.0.3.1 – it may be different with other versions.)

Vaughan