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From: MML Staff <mml@4you.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
Subject: Dispute over number of files
Date: 3 May 1996 13:44:37 GMT
Organization: Muslim Matrimonial Link
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I have an account with an Internet presence provider (names
will be kept confidential) and I was told I would get
75 Mbytes of disk space with my account when I signed up.
Recently I was not able to create any more files and doing a
"quota -v" revealed that they had also imposed a quota on the
number of files I could create. Here is what it looked like:
Disk quotas for user [deleted] (uid [deleted]):
Filesystem blocks quota limit grace files quota limit grace
/usr 35815 84480 76800 7499 8250 7500
I am creating a lot of HTML files which tend to be small
(usually under 1K) and so have not used up a lot of disk
blocks (each block is 1K). I also try to keep the size
of the images small so they will transfer more quickly.
I contacted my presence provider about having the file limit
removed and keeping only the block limit. Initially they
tried to tell me that it required reformatting the disk.
After I disqualifed that, they are telling me there is some
sort of limit on the total number of files such that they
can't remove the file limit. I happen to have accounts on other
Unix systems and also administer some, but I have never
encountered any problems with file limits. The file quotas
I've seen are always set to 0. Unfortunately I don't administer
or have other accounts on a BSDI system.
The system they are using is:
BSDI BSD/OS 2.1 Kernel #2
(as given by uname)
I need feedback from some BSDI guru's to help settle this
dispute. If you 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.
Here is our conversation so far (unquoted is my request and
quoted is the presence providers response):
I have many small (less than 1K) files so even though I've
only used up 2/3 of my disk space (75 M) Im getting close
to the limit on the total number of files. I actualy
hit this limit yesterday and removed some unused files
to bring down the number of files. Can you please remove
this limit on the number of files? Thanks.
> Unix always assigns at least a small amount of space for files even if your
> files are smaller than the space. Because of this, the file limit is linked
> to the space limit. We cannot change this.
Yes, I know that file space is allocated in units of blocks and
on pike.iserver.com the size of each block is 1K. But dividing
the number of blocks in my quota limit (76800) by the number
of files in my quota limit (7500) gives 10.24 blocks/file.
So with my quota set this way every time I create a tiny file
I am in effect using 10.24 blocks instead of 1 block. If
all my files are tiny I would hit my quota after using only
7M of disk space rather than the 75M which Im paying for.
> The size of each block is 1024 bytes. Your file limit is 7500 files. One
> file minimum size is 1024 bytes. If you had 7500 empty files, you would be
> using 75 meg of space, not 7 meg.
Your calculations are WRONG!!
1024 bytes/file * 7500 files = 7,680,00 bytes (7 meg; NOT 75 meg)
So you should either increase the file limit to 75,000 or remove it
by setting it to 0.
> Sorry, you are correct. You wouldn't be too smart to have 7500 very small
> files. Anyway, this is not something that will change. We would have to
> reformat the drive, which we really don't plan on doing.
> I am sorry, but you will need to purchase more space, or move to another
> provider. We wouldn't like that of course, but you need to make that
> decision. Or just not use so many small files.
To change a users quota you do not need to reformat a drive. You
simply login as root and run "edquota -u userid". Where userid in
this case would be [deleted]. Im a unix administrator at
[deleted] and I do this all the time.
It's very simple. Check out the man page on edquota for more info.
I certianly plan on purchasing more disk space when I start reaching
my 75 M quota. But right now Im only using 35 M of disk space.
As soon as I get to 70 M I *WILL* buy more. Im not cheap or trying
to get you guys to give me free disk space. I just want you guys
to give me what you advertised and what I am paying for. You
advertised 75 M of disk space. No where did you say there would
also be a 7500 file limit in this deal. I only found out when I
couldn't create anymore files and saw that you had imposed a file
limit in addition to the disk space limit. So it really boils down
to a matter of truth in advertising. I could easily take this case
to a lawyer and sue you guys for false advertising. But I hope
you guys decide to live up to your end of the deal. Especially
since it is so easy to do by running edquota and setting file
quota and limit to 0; and it does *NOT* require reformtting the drive.
> I have talked to our programmers and like I told you, they will not unlink
> the file #'s from the quota. As far as "truth in advertising" goes you
> bring up a good point. I hope you know us well enough to understand we
> aren't out to screw our clients. We work hard to provide the best possible
> low cost solution there is. All things have limits. If we were to
> advertise every single limitation it wouldn't be a nice add. However, we
> feel these limits are very workable and 99% of the people have no problem
> with them. Of the 1% that do, once explained, they usually don't have an
> issue either.
End of email conversations.
After this I called and talked to an administrative person there.
He said he was under the impression that there was some sort of
hard limit on the number of files and so they needed to have the
file quota in addition to the block quota. I told him that in my
experience I've never encountered a problem with the total number of
files on a unix file system exceeding a limit and that they could set
this to 0 and not have any problems. He said he would check with his
technical people and get back to me. But I have not heard from
him yet.
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.
Scott
smarq@4you.com