Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!mips!wyse!bob
From: bob@wyse.wyse.com (Bob McGowen Wyse Technology Training)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: Disk full
Keywords: inodes fsck -s
Message-ID: <2437@wyse.wyse.com>
Date: 19 Sep 89 22:53:01 GMT
References: <9359@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
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Reply-To: bob@wyse.UUCP (Bob McGowen Wyse Technology Training)
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In article <9359@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> tensor@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Steven Murphy) writes:
>Howdy all,
>
>	Every now and then, one of our customers' systems will start
>displaying "no space on /dev/xxx (xxx designating the hard disk-I 've
>forgotten the exact designation :-(. ). It apparently is *not* due to
>the actual disk being full, but that the free list of inodes is full.
>Running fsck -s will get the free space back, but on one occasion with
>disastrous results (database trashed). What is the explanation for running
>out of inodes? Is there something that can prevent it's occurrence. Is there
>a place in TFM that explains it, if so help me out. The problem has occurred
>on different hardware and Xenix286 revisions, but the last time it happened,
>it was with a compaq 386 and Xenix286 2.2.3. 
>                                                 Thanks,
>									                                                 Steve

You have one file per inode, and the number of files = number of inodes.

Check under mkfs for more info.  In particular, the following form allows
you to increase the number of inodes available.

	mkfs /dev/name number_of_blocks:number_of_inodes

This form works with 2.2.x and 2.3.x XENIXs (according to the man page, I
have not used this form under either version).  I do not know about earlier
versions though I expect not.  The blocks are BSIZE, which is 1K, so you
can figure the number to use from the df output by dividing by 2 (df
reports in 512 byte block size).  I believe that the "standard" number
of inodes is approximately 25% of the number of blocks, so adjust your
number_of_inodes up accordingly.  Remember that you will "loose" blocks for
storage of the inodes, but there are 64 inodes per block so the "loss" is
not high.

I hope this is helpful.

Bob McGowan  (standard disclaimer, these are my own ...)
Customer Education, Wyse Technology, San Jose, CA
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