32k directory limit

[Darcy Buskermolen]

On January 21, 2004 10:34 am, Robert Watson wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Darcy Buskermolen wrote:
> > Problem is some brain dead software (to which I don't have source)
> > creating these dirs all under one dir and not nesting them in a way to
> > ensure that the 32k number isn't broken.
>
> The largest number of files (not directories) I have in a single directory
> appears to be about 1.1 million.  Other than the link count, there's no
> real reason there couldn't be more, although you might well bump into
> other scalability limits (I have to remember not to let ls sort the
> directory listing for that directory, for example).  Changing the link
> count would be a binary layout change, however.  We have more reserve
> fields in the UFS2 inode, and it might well not be hard to experiment
> with.  But we'd need to be very careful if deploying that change more
> broadly.

I wouldn't be against trying/testing such a solution/hack in my environment  
any hints/patches would be most usefull.

>
> Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
> robert at fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research
>
> > On January 20, 2004 06:28 pm, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> > > On Friday, 16 January 2004 at 12:05:53 -0800, Darcy Buskermolen wrote:
> > > > Is there a way i can bump up the limit of 32k directories in a
> > > > directory on either 4.9 or 5.2 ?
> > >
> > > I don't think so.  It's really the link count that's biting you, and
> > > it's a signed 16 bit number.  FWIW, System V limits to 1000.
> > >
> > > Why do you want that many directories?  UNIX directories aren't
> > > designed to be that big, whether the entries point to files or
> > > directories.
> > >
> > > Greg
> > > --
> > > See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> >
> > --
> > Darcy Buskermolen
> > Wavefire Technologies Corp.
> > ph: 250.717.0200
> > fx:  250.763.1759
> > http://www.wavefire.com
> >
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-- 
Darcy Buskermolen
Wavefire Technologies Corp.
ph: 250.717.0200
fx:  250.763.1759
http://www.wavefire.com