Deciphering mysql error codes

I was tasked to upgrade the mysql server running on the Centos server.

Of course, the first thing I should do was to backup my database. I run the mysqldump command below to write out the sql statements that will re-create and populate the database tables.

# mysqldump -uroot -p -l --opt --all-databases=true > /root/mysqlall.sql
mysqldump: Couldn't execute 'show fields from `asset`': Got error 28 from storage engine (1030)

Lo and behold, I got an "error 28". What is "error 28"? The error message has no useful details that could help me troubleshoot.

The perror command came in handy in that situation.

# perror 28
OS error code  28:  No space left on device

Now, a quick df command confirmed that the hard-drive was full.

perror explains system error codes generated by mysql and the base OS(Linux).