Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 20:35:54 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> To: dan_mclean@mlc.com.au Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: i-node problems Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0107262024020.62016-100000@ren.sasknow.com> In-Reply-To: <OFE35321D9.FB05B523-ONCA256A96.000BBFB3@mlc.com.au>
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dan_mclean@mlc.com.au wrote to freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG: > I have just installed 4.3 on a 40Gb hard disk (I was sick of not being > able to run latex). > > I keep getting an error "out of i-nodes" which I guess means that my > /var partition is filling up. This is because I used the suggested > partition size in the disk set up part of the install so only have > 20Mb for /var and 39Gb for /usr (ok I know how dumb that is now). There are basically two ways a UNIX partition can fill up. One is to run out of blocks/frags (i.e., run out of space) The other way, as you have encountered, is to run out of i-nodes (i.e., use up all available directory entries by creating too many files) It is possible, when running newfs even on a small drive, to allocate more i-nodes with a higher value for the -i switch. By default, one i-node is allocated for every 4 frags (i.e., one i-node for every 4K, or, on a 20MB HD, approximately 5120 i-nodes). So, if you have more than about 5K files, plus 3 entries for every directory, you'll run out. Not suprising on /var, which usually contains a lot of small files (/var on this machine contains about 80K inodes, and that's not very many). However, the i-node limit is not easily changed on a partition that already exists. You can indeed symlink some portions of /var to other filesystems. It is generally a good idea to set this up in single-user mode if you can, because many daemons and applications lock files in /var. This is the easiest solution, but perhaps not the best long-term. If you want to re-create /var larger, you may be in for a headache, as in your case, it sounds like you will have to shrink /usr. There is no "right" way to do this... many people would simply elect to re-install the OS and re-partition the drives from scratch during the process. If this is not an option, you can always add more drives to the system, or do a dump of each filesystem to a spare drive/tape backup, repartition/newfs/relabel everything, and restore the files on the resized drives. Hope this helps! (I know it wasn't exactly good news ;-) - Ryan > Here are my questions > > 1. Can I link the /var/db/pkg files to somewhere on my /usr partition? > > 2. Can I repatriation the /var some how to be say 100Mb ?? > > Thanks in advance. > > Dan McLean > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > -- Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> Network Administrator, Accounts SaskNow Technologies - http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E - Saskatoon, SK - S7H 0W2 Tel: 306-664-3600 Fax: 306-664-1161 Saskatoon Toll-Free: 877-727-5669 (877-SASKNOW) North America To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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