Shell script to watch the disk space

Step # 1: First get disk space:

$ df -H
Output:

Filesystem             Size   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdb1               20G    14G   5.5G  71% /
tmpfs                  394M   4.1k   394M   1% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb5               29G    27G   654M  98% /nas/www

Step # 2: Next filter out filesystem and find out the percentage of space

$ df -H | grep -vE '^Filesystem|tmpfs|cdrom' | awk '{ print $5 " " $1 }'
Output:

71% /dev/hdb1
98% /dev/hdb5

Step # 3: Write a shell script

Above command displays field 5 and 1 of df command. Now all you need to do is write a script to see if the percentage of space is >= 90% (download script):

#!/bin/sh
df -H | grep -vE '^Filesystem|tmpfs|cdrom' | awk '{ print $5 " " $1 }' | while read output;
do
  echo $output
  usep=$(echo $output | awk '{ print $1}' | cut -d'%' -f1  )
  partition=$(echo $output | awk '{ print $2 }' )
  if [ $usep -ge 90 ]; then
    echo "Running out of space \"$partition ($usep%)\" on $(hostname) as on $(date)" |
     mail -s "Alert: Almost out of disk space $usep%" you@somewhere.com
  fi
done

Setup Cron job

Save and install script as cronjob. Copy script to /etc/cron.daily/ (script downolad link)
# cp diskAlert /etc/cron.daily/
# chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/diskAlert
OR install as cronjob:
crontab -e
Write cronjob as per your requirement
10 0 * * * /path/to/diskAlert

Updated script version

Tony contributed and updated my script - You can exclude selected filesystem in case you don't want monitor all filesystems.

#!/bin/sh
# set -x
# Shell script to monitor or watch the disk space
# It will send an email to $ADMIN, if the (free available) percentage of space is >= 90%.
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Set admin email so that you can get email.
ADMIN="root"
# set alert level 90% is default
ALERT=90
# Exclude list of unwanted monitoring, if several partions then use "|" to separate the partitions.
# An example: EXCLUDE_LIST="/dev/hdd1|/dev/hdc5"
EXCLUDE_LIST="/auto/ripper"
#
#::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#
function main_prog() {
while read output;
do
#echo $output
  usep=$(echo $output | awk '{ print $1}' | cut -d'%' -f1)
  partition=$(echo $output | awk '{print $2}')
  if [ $usep -ge $ALERT ] ; then
     echo "Running out of space \"$partition ($usep%)\" on server $(hostname), $(date)" | \
     mail -s "Alert: Almost out of disk space $usep%" $ADMIN
  fi
done
}
if [ "$EXCLUDE_LIST" != "" ] ; then
  df -H | grep -vE "^Filesystem|tmpfs|cdrom|${EXCLUDE_LIST}" | awk '{print $5 " " $6}' | main_prog
else
  df -H | grep -vE "^Filesystem|tmpfs|cdrom" | awk '{print $5 " " $6}' | main_prog
fi