Running out of inodes

[Romain Kang]

In article <1033 at syma.sussex.ac.uk> andy at syma.sussex.ac.uk (Andy Clews) writes:
|Trouble is, we find that no matter what number is supplied with the -i
|option to newsfs, the file system is rebuilt with exactly the same
|number as before (i.e. 36864 inodes on a 254Mb partition)! We asked for
|twice the current number of inodes.

In article <7041 at cbmvax.UUCP> grr at cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
|With Ultrix (also 4.2 BSD based) I ran into the same problem maybe two
|years ago.  It turned out there was an upper limit on the number of inodes
|for a given blocksize/fragsize and the only way to get more inodes was to
|diddle these values.  There was also only a restriction on blocksize.
|
|Trying to use imaginative values resulted in them being silently ignored
|and the default values being used.

In <ufs/fs.h> (or <sys/fs.h> on non-NFS'd 4.3), you will find:
	/*
	 * MAXIPG bounds the number of inodes per cylinder group, and
	 * is needed only to keep the structure simpler by having the
	 * only a single variable size element (the free bit map).
	 *
	 * N.B.: MAXIPG must be a multiple of INOPB(fs).
	 */
	#define MAXIPG		2048	/* max number inodes/cyl group */

I believe this is fixed in 4.3-Tahoe with the ``Fat Fast File System''.
(Does anyone know whether SVr4 addresses this problem?)  In the mean
time, you can make your cylinder groups smaller by using the -c option
on newfs.

It does seem wastful to have 30+ cylinder groups on a 254MB partition.
But you will get more inodes...
--
Romain Kang
Pyramid Technology Corporation

"Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks!" -Adlai Stevenson