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From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Subject: Re: Dispute over number of files
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: spcvxa.spc.edu
References: <4md2k5$ep1@antares.en.com>
Sender: news@spcuna.spc.edu (Network News)
X-Nntp-Posting-User: TERRY
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 15:59:02 GMT
Message-ID: <1996May3.105902.1@spcvxb.spc.edu>
Lines: 51
In article <4md2k5$ep1@antares.en.com>, MML Staff <mml@4you.com> writes:
> If anyone can provide factual information about the Unix file
> system (especially BSDI; if it's different) that supports either
> my argument or the presence providers, please respond. Post
> your response rather them email, so that everyone (including
> the presence provider) can see. Thanks.
I think your provider is a little confused, particularly in the area of
minimum file sizes - you could have a 1K file and zillions of links to it
and still only be using 1K of disk space. Inodes (where directory entries
live) take up *some* space, but they're only 128 bytes, as this program
will demonstrate:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <ufs/ufs/dinode.h>
main()
{
printf("%d\n", sizeof(struct dinode));
}
And these inodes are pre-allocated when the disk is initialized, so if
you use more inodes, the available disk space doesn't go down as long as
you don't actually create unique files. If they want to limit your disk
space, then a simple size limit will do it (as you noted).
However, they may have initialized (newfs'd) the disk with a small num-
ber of inodes and they may be concerned with running out of inodes. Indeed,
the only way to fix that is to reinitialize the disk with more inodes. This
is a common mistake, particularly with news spool disks (as they have lots
of tiny files). You can easily see if this is a problem by using the "df -i"
command:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/sd0a 63535 7838 52520 13% 1122 14236 7% /
mfs:30 15871 1 15076 0% 1 3837 0% /tmp
/dev/sd0d 254191 2842 238639 1% 462 60976 1% /var
/dev/sd0e 254191 3 241478 0% 2 61436 0% /tmp
/dev/sd0h 1334451 940998 326730 74% 82763 239795 26% /usr
/dev/sd1a 63535 5590 54768 9% 1114 14244 7% /backroot
/dev/sd1d 595535 2852 562906 1% 178 145740 0% /news
/dev/sd1h 1246819 420775 763703 36% 3364 299994 1% /sysprog
If "%iused" is greater than "capacity", then the disk will likely run out
of inodes at some point. If it's less, the disk probably won't run out unless
the usage pattern changes greatly. Note that all of these partitions were
initialized with the default values.
Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing
terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
+1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)