Re: [PLUG] XFS limits

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 08:25:46AM -0500, Martin Cracauer wrote:
> Walt Mankowski via plug wrote on Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 11:11:32AM -0500: 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Anyone have any experience using XFS? I just ran into a weird error.
> > I'm wondering if maybe there's a limit of 4 TB of files in a single
> > directory.
> > 
> > An rsync job just quietly stopped working. To be specific, it acted
> > like it was still working and no errors were reported, but at some
> > point overnight files stopped being stored on the remote box.
> > 
> > I was trying to transfer 4.9 TB of files, all in a single directory.
> > (Don't ask.) I thought it was getting close to finishing, but when I
> > looked closer I saw that the last file on the remote box had a
> > timestamp from around 2 AM this morning.
> > 
> > It's also possible we hit a 4 TB quota, but then I'd have expected to
> > get an error.
> 
> Maybe a 32 bit executable is involved that has been compiled without
> #define_LARGEFILE_SOURCE

The server is fairly new. I'd be shocked if that's the case.

> Although, that would be a per-file limit, not for the contents of a
> directory.
> 
> I would run the rsync under strace.

It's moot at this point. I'm not the admin for the box so there's not
really anything I can do to fix it anyway. But now that I know what
the limit is, I can work within it. It's pretty rare even in my shop
for there to be over 4 TB of data in a single flat directory.

Walt
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