Today I was copying a folder containing large number of small files (around 1,25,000) into a backup partition (/dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data) on my Ubuntu 16.04 VM with ext4 file system. That folder size was 250MB, and the backup partition had around 45GB of free space. One of the sub-directory of that folder has around 45,000 files with long file names like 3_8_25438833_11_3_4081_2017_12_08_13_07_55_2017_12_09_11_15_01_2018_01_02_13_38_42_2018_01_06_11_29_12_2018_01_06_11_37_07_2018_01_06_11_48_09_2018_01_06_13_16_01_2018_01_06_13_21_13_2018_01_06_13_52_55_2018_01_06_14_47_22.json
When I started copying, after some time the copy operation started giving me error of "cannot create regular file" and“no space left on device” on my backup partition (while copying the files of the folder containing long file names). As that partition had 45GB space, so running out of space was out of question, so I thought maybe I consumed the number of Inodes in the backup partition. I checked Inodes of that partition and found that large number of inodes were free.
After searching a lot I found one excellent blog https://blog.merovius.de/2013/10/20/ext4-mysterious-no-space-left-on.html which wrote about dir_index of ext4. Please read that blog for details of the issue and I am not going to repeat that here.
So I decided to check and disable dir_index for my backup partition (/dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data).
To check whether dir_index is enabled or not, I used tune2fs command as mentioned in the blog.
# tune2fs -l /dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data | grep -o dir_index
If the above command outputs dir_index, that means dir_index is enabled for that partition, if it outputs nothing that means dir_index is not enabled.
Once I came to know that dir_index is enabled in my /dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data partition, so I decied to disable it.
So I used the following command:
# tune2fs -O "^dir_index" /dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data
to disable dir_index.
After disabling dir_index I tried to copy that directory again, and wow my copy operation successfully completed this time.
When I started copying, after some time the copy operation started giving me error of "cannot create regular file" and“no space left on device” on my backup partition (while copying the files of the folder containing long file names). As that partition had 45GB space, so running out of space was out of question, so I thought maybe I consumed the number of Inodes in the backup partition. I checked Inodes of that partition and found that large number of inodes were free.
After searching a lot I found one excellent blog https://blog.merovius.de/2013/10/20/ext4-mysterious-no-space-left-on.html which wrote about dir_index of ext4. Please read that blog for details of the issue and I am not going to repeat that here.
So I decided to check and disable dir_index for my backup partition (/dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data).
To check whether dir_index is enabled or not, I used tune2fs command as mentioned in the blog.
# tune2fs -l /dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data | grep -o dir_index
If the above command outputs dir_index, that means dir_index is enabled for that partition, if it outputs nothing that means dir_index is not enabled.
Once I came to know that dir_index is enabled in my /dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data partition, so I decied to disable it.
So I used the following command:
# tune2fs -O "^dir_index" /dev/mapper/vg_ema_data-lv_ema_data
to disable dir_index.
After disabling dir_index I tried to copy that directory again, and wow my copy operation successfully completed this time.
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