Running Out of Inodes

Running Out of Inodes

[Jaft via]

Hey, hey.
It could very well be my own ignorance about things but I'm running into an issue that I wouldn't think I'd run into so naïvely; if there's any further light to be shed, I very much appreciate it.
I wanted to try out Guix so I installed it to a laptop I have; the previous distro I had on there had been using a root partition of about 46G so I just decided to keep the same partition setup (though reformatting each one).
About 17 packages in, I started getting a "No space left on device" error; looking closer at it, – while I still had ~20% of free disk space available – I was fresh out of free inodes. I remembered that someone I'd read, somewhere, had said you'd probably want, at least, 50G for Guix so I figured I probably shot myself in the foot with so small a root and just opted to reinstall.
This time, I deleted the home partition and the root one to create one 156G partition for the entire install and figured that'd be sufficient (I've been using ext4 for these, in case that information is relevant, any).
This time, though, I managed 21 packages before running into the same issue.
There's still 70% of the disk space free but I'm entirely out of free inodes; leastwise, I was but I tried a guix gc, just to see what all got freed up, and, now, I have 5% of all inodes free.
Is this relatively typical? I figured I hadn't done anything particularly out of ordinary usage (Guix's new to me so I literally just did an install and then started installing packages from the gnu channel).
Let me know if there's any further or more particular info. to include, if that'd help; I just wouldn't know what to provide.
Thanks!
Jonathan

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[phodina via]

Hi Jonathan,

On Nov 14, 2021, 12:14 PM, Jaft via < help-guix@gnu.org> wrote:
Hey, hey.
It could very well be my own ignorance about things but I'm running into an issue that I wouldn't think I'd run into so naïvely; if there's any further light to be shed, I very much appreciate it.
I wanted to try out Guix so I installed it to a laptop I have; the previous distro I had on there had been using a root partition of about 46G so I just decided to keep the same partition setup (though reformatting each one).
About 17 packages in, I started getting a "No space left on device" error; looking closer at it, – while I still had ~20% of free disk space available – I was fresh out of free inodes. I remembered that someone I'd read, somewhere, had said you'd probably want, at least, 50G for Guix so I figured I probably shot myself in the foot with so small a root and just opted to reinstall.
This time, I deleted the home partition and the root one to create one 156G partition for the entire install and figured that'd be sufficient (I've been using ext4 for these, in case that information is relevant, any).
This time, though, I managed 21 packages before running into the same issue.
There's still 70% of the disk space free but I'm entirely out of free inodes; leastwise, I was but I tried a guix gc, just to see what all got freed up, and, now, I have 5% of all inodes free.
Is this relatively typical? I figured I hadn't done anything particularly out of ordinary usage (Guix's new to me so I literally just did an install and then started installing packages from the gnu channel).
Let me know if there's any further or more particular info. to include, if that'd help; I just wouldn't know what to provide.
Thanks!
Jonathan

You might check this thread [1] as it's similar question. Unfortunately I'm running on btrfs.

Hope it helps!

----
Kind regards
Petr

[1]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2020-06/msg00015.html

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Jaft via]

 Heh, – well – I tried the large_dir suggestion in that thread and GRUB had the same freak-out (in retrospect, not surprising as the E-mails are only from 2020; dunno why I thought I'd seen 2017, on first read…).
I remember, when first trying to look into this, seeing someone say, "This is why I always use Btrfs for my /gnu/store partition," so maybe that's my best bet.
Out of curiosity, I read that Btrfs requires periodic fragmentation; how often do you find yourself doing it and do you use any particular program for it (if you don't mind sharing, of course; I know it's not directly Guix related)?
Jonathan    On Sunday, November 14, 2021, 07:47:23 AM CST, phodina <phodina@protonmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Hi Jonathan,


On Nov 14, 2021, 12:14 PM, Jaft via < help-guix@gnu.org> wrote:
Hey, hey.
It could very well be my own ignorance about things but I'm running into an issue that I wouldn't think I'd run into so naïvely; if there's any further light to be shed, I very much appreciate it.
I wanted to try out Guix so I installed it to a laptop I have; the previous distro I had on there had been using a root partition of about 46G so I just decided to keep the same partition setup (though reformatting each one).
About 17 packages in, I started getting a "No space left on device" error; looking closer at it, – while I still had ~20% of free disk space available – I was fresh out of free inodes. I remembered that someone I'd read, somewhere, had said you'd probably want, at least, 50G for Guix so I figured I probably shot myself in the foot with so small a root and just opted to reinstall.
This time, I deleted the home partition and the root one to create one 156G partition for the entire install and figured that'd be sufficient (I've been using ext4 for these, in case that information is relevant, any).
This time, though, I managed 21 packages before running into the same issue.
There's still 70% of the disk space free but I'm entirely out of free inodes; leastwise, I was but I tried a guix gc, just to see what all got freed up, and, now, I have 5% of all inodes free.
Is this relatively typical? I figured I hadn't done anything particularly out of ordinary usage (Guix's new to me so I literally just did an install and then started installing packages from the gnu channel).
Let me know if there's any further or more particular info. to include, if that'd help; I just wouldn't know what to provide.
Thanks!
Jonathan


You might check this thread [1] as it's similar question. Unfortunately I'm running on btrfs.

Hope it helps!

----
Kind regards
Petr

[1]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2020-06/msg00015.html  

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Vincent Legoll]

Hello,

On Sun, Nov 14, 2021 at 7:58 PM Jaft via <help-guix@gnu.org> wrote:
> Heh, – well – I tried the large_dir suggestion in that thread and GRUB had
> the same freak-out (in retrospect, not surprising as the E-mails are only from
> 2020; dunno why I thought I'd seen 2017, on first read…).

There's a "2017" mention in the thread referenced by Petr, maybe that's where
you saw it.

> using a root partition of about 46G
> About 17 packages in, I started getting a "No space left on device" error;
> looking closer at it, – while I still had ~20% of free disk space available –
> I was fresh out of free inodes.

If your problem is really being out of free inodes, I don't think the
"large_dir"
option is your solution, because it only increase the number of files per
directory limit, it does not increase the available number of inodes.

Maybe you should manually create the filesystem with mke2fs and specify
a bigger number of inodes with its "-N" parameter.

Tell us if you find a way around the problem.

-- 
Vincent Legoll

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> On Sun, Nov 14, 2021 at 7:58 PM Jaft via <help-guix@gnu.org> wrote:
>> Heh, – well – I tried the large_dir suggestion in that thread and GRUB had
>> the same freak-out (in retrospect, not surprising as the E-mails are only from
>> 2020; dunno why I thought I'd seen 2017, on first read…).
>
> There's a "2017" mention in the thread referenced by Petr, maybe that's where
> you saw it.
>
>> using a root partition of about 46G
>> About 17 packages in, I started getting a "No space left on device" error;
>> looking closer at it, – while I still had ~20% of free disk space available –
>> I was fresh out of free inodes.
>
> If your problem is really being out of free inodes, I don't think the
> "large_dir"
> option is your solution, because it only increase the number of files per
> directory limit, it does not increase the available number of inodes.
>
> Maybe you should manually create the filesystem with mke2fs and specify
> a bigger number of inodes with its "-N" parameter.

The small-filesystem option to mkfs.ext4 (-T small) could help, because
it gives a higher fraction of inodes. This helps if you have very many
small files. See https://linux.die.net/man/5/mke2fs.conf

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein,
ohne es zu merken.
draketo.de

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Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Jaft via]

 Mmm; that makes sense. 'Dunno why my brain interpreted it as "more inodes"; thanks for pointing it out.
I just opted to make /gnu/store its own Btrfs partition; I don't trust myself to be able to properly estimate how many inodes I might need and it's been working really well, thus far.
Thanks for the info. you provided, though; it was helpful in understanding what's going on.
Jonathan
    On Sunday, November 14, 2021, 03:01:39 PM CST, Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Hello,

On Sun, Nov 14, 2021 at 7:58 PM Jaft via <help-guix@gnu.org> wrote:
> Heh, – well – I tried the large_dir suggestion in that thread and GRUB had
> the same freak-out (in retrospect, not surprising as the E-mails are only from
> 2020; dunno why I thought I'd seen 2017, on first read…).

There's a "2017" mention in the thread referenced by Petr, maybe that's where
you saw it.

> using a root partition of about 46G
> About 17 packages in, I started getting a "No space left on device" error;
> looking closer at it, – while I still had ~20% of free disk space available –
> I was fresh out of free inodes.

If your problem is really being out of free inodes, I don't think the
"large_dir"
option is your solution, because it only increase the number of files per
directory limit, it does not increase the available number of inodes.

Maybe you should manually create the filesystem with mke2fs and specify
a bigger number of inodes with its "-N" parameter.

Tell us if you find a way around the problem.

-- 
Vincent Legoll
  

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Thiago Jung Bauermann]

Hello Jonathan,

Em domingo, 14 de novembro de 2021, às 15:47:54 -03, Jaft via escreveu:
> Out of curiosity, I read that Btrfs requires periodic
> fragmentation; how often do you find yourself doing it and do you use
> any particular program for it (if you don't mind sharing, of course; I
> know it's not directly Guix related)?

I use btrfs for several years now — not with Guix System, though I do have 
Guix installed on top of Ubuntu on btrfs so I do have /gnu/store on btrfs. 
My experience is that it is zero-maintenance, at least on a personal laptop 
workload.

Btrfs has matured a lot over the years, so there’s a fair amount of 
outdated advice still floating around on the Internet. You’re probably 
thinking of the ‘btrfs balance’ command. In the past, it was useful to run 
it every once in a while to avoid spurious ENOSPC errors. This problem has 
since been fixed, and current advice is that regular use of “btrfs balance” 
is now considered detrimental rather than beneficial since it puts more 
load/stress on the disk without any practical benefit.

-- 
Thanks,
Thiago

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Jaft via]

 Oh, that's really cool. Good to know; I've never used anything outside of (ex)fat, ntfs, or ext4 and btrfs sounds interesting. I may have to play around with it more extensively, at some point.
Jonathan
    On Sunday, November 14, 2021, 09:18:22 PM CST, Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauermann@kolabnow.com> wrote:  
 
 Hello Jonathan,

Em domingo, 14 de novembro de 2021, às 15:47:54 -03, Jaft via escreveu:
> Out of curiosity, I read that Btrfs requires periodic
> fragmentation; how often do you find yourself doing it and do you use
> any particular program for it (if you don't mind sharing, of course; I
> know it's not directly Guix related)?

I use btrfs for several years now — not with Guix System, though I do have 
Guix installed on top of Ubuntu on btrfs so I do have /gnu/store on btrfs. 
My experience is that it is zero-maintenance, at least on a personal laptop 
workload.

Btrfs has matured a lot over the years, so there’s a fair amount of 
outdated advice still floating around on the Internet. You’re probably 
thinking of the ‘btrfs balance’ command. In the past, it was useful to run 
it every once in a while to avoid spurious ENOSPC errors. This problem has 
since been fixed, and current advice is that regular use of “btrfs balance” 
is now considered detrimental rather than beneficial since it puts more 
load/stress on the disk without any practical benefit.

-- 
Thanks,
Thiago


  

Re: Running Out of Inodes

[Paul Jewell]

I ran into this problem several months back, so I re-installed with 
brtfs. No issues at all, and never looked back!

On 16/11/2021 08:14, Jaft via wrote:
>   Oh, that's really cool. Good to know; I've never used anything outside of (ex)fat, ntfs, or ext4 and btrfs sounds interesting. I may have to play around with it more extensively, at some point.
> Jonathan
>      On Sunday, November 14, 2021, 09:18:22 PM CST, Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauermann@kolabnow.com> wrote:
>   
>   Hello Jonathan,
>
> Em domingo, 14 de novembro de 2021, às 15:47:54 -03, Jaft via escreveu:
>> Out of curiosity, I read that Btrfs requires periodic
>> fragmentation; how often do you find yourself doing it and do you use
>> any particular program for it (if you don't mind sharing, of course; I
>> know it's not directly Guix related)?
> I use btrfs for several years now — not with Guix System, though I do have
> Guix installed on top of Ubuntu on btrfs so I do have /gnu/store on btrfs.
> My experience is that it is zero-maintenance, at least on a personal laptop
> workload.
>
> Btrfs has matured a lot over the years, so there’s a fair amount of
> outdated advice still floating around on the Internet. You’re probably
> thinking of the ‘btrfs balance’ command. In the past, it was useful to run
> it every once in a while to avoid spurious ENOSPC errors. This problem has
> since been fixed, and current advice is that regular use of “btrfs balance”
> is now considered detrimental rather than beneficial since it puts more
> load/stress on the disk without any practical benefit.
>