Hate how every time I have an ubuntu box meet inode limits is always due to Linux Headers... Boss wanted me to add more storage to his box because he was at capacity..

apt-get autoremove

Drive went from 100% usage to 39%..

Nice tip

Can you explain this one a bit more? Sounds interesting...

@spl0 ubuntu keeps every linux version and headers for every dist-upgrade you do. so I'm guessing it was either a single partition setup or root and home partition setup

@jckimble by default AWS installs are single partition. Which is why the buildup of the headers could potentially render the machine inaccessibile if the inodes are at 100%

@scrptd true, inode problems usually only show on big partitions with alot of small files and it doesn't show 100% filesystem usage in my experience. you have to set a specific option on df to even get inode usage

How many inodes does it have?

I've got a linux mint box (similar to ubuntu right?). df -i has inodes on 1% for every filesystem ... so whats using them up on these other systems? Got to be more than a few header files...

@spl0 it's different based on the partition size and filesystem

tune2fs -l /dev/sda1 | grep inode

this should give you all the inode information for sda1. but 1% sounds about right, unless you just have millions of small files under 2kb chances are inodes will not be your problem. it's good to know to check but unless your getting harddrive full errors with df -h showing 80% it's not inode

OK , so what I dont understand is.... the original post said it was due to Linux headers. How does that work?

If a filesystem is full of millions of small files, and that takes up the all the inodes, then fine. Thats how unix has always worked. But what have linux header files got to do with it?

@spl0 ubuntu installs the linux - headers package which has alot of small files. if you upgrade the same system weekly for 8 years you will hit the inode limit eventually. each time it adds 11700 files, let's just say it has about 2m inodes. how many upgrades would it take from that alone. I think it would be around 170 upgrades which on a lts version is easily possible in 8 years

here's the bug report on it btw
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/...