File size limitation in the EST 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Hello Friends,

I tried to take tar backup in my server, but it ended with an error.
It said that:

 /home/back/pallava_backup/fbackup_backup/stape_config
/home/back/romam_new.tar.gz
tar: /home/backup/back.tar.gz: Cannot write: No space left on device
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
[root@OWP-15 back]#

But i checked the system, it has enough space to hold

[root@OWP-15 back]# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                     276535241 155700449 106783874  60% /
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01
                     199146641 122482178  66545705  65% /home
/dev/sda1               118523     11323    101178  11% /boot
tmpfs                   916268         0    916268   0% /dev/shm

And tar backup was stopped exactly after it took 17GB of data

---------- Post updated at 05:55 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:52 PM ----------

And i checked the file size limit in the system and i got

ulimit -a
core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority             (-e) 0
file size               (blocks, -f) 102400000
pending signals                 (-i) 14288
max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 32
max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files                      (-n) 1024
pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority              (-r) 0
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 10240
cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes              (-u) 14288
virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks                      (-x) unlimited

created file size is as follow:

[root@OWP-15 back]#
[root@OWP-15 back]# cd /home/backup
[root@OWP-15 backup]#
[root@OWP-15 backup]#
[root@OWP-15 backup]# ls
back.tar.gz
[root@OWP-15 backup]# ll
total 16909071
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17247252480 Dec 31 06:04 back.tar.gz
[root@OWP-15 backup]#

Disk quota?

quota -v

Kernel and file system?

uname -sr
mount | grep -w /home

Try it without the compression option. I'm not sure how GNU tar on your system handles compression under the hood, but I think some older versions just create a temp tar file and then compresses that. Perhaps the uncompressed temp file filled up the disk then was deleted upon failure.

There are lots of reasons your tar my fail.

What version of tar are you using and what options are you passing to tar when your script invokes it? Are you using a 32-bit version of tar or a 64-bit version? Output of file utility will tell you that information.

I got below output when excuting mentioned commands

[root@OWP-15 ~]# quota -v
[root@OWP-15 ~]#
[root@OWP-15 ~]#
[root@OWP-15 ~]# uname -sr
Linux 2.6.18-348.el5
[root@OWP-15 ~]#
[root@OWP-15 ~]#
[root@OWP-15 ~]# mount | grep -w /home
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01 on /home type ext3 (rw)
[root@OWP-15 ~]#

Thanks in advance

---------- Post updated at 03:01 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:56 PM ----------

I tried without compression but it failed.

I think there is no problem with tar.

I tried to copy a file which one size greater than 17 GB <Actual Size is 22 GB>

via NFS.

It failed too.

Thanks in advance

Hi.

I see in ext3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that the maximum file size for 1 KiB blocks is 16 GiB

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

This is a likely problem. To confirm the current block size:

dumpe2fs /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01 | grep size

Hi friends,

I got below showed output

[root@OWP-18 cmc_backup]# dumpe2fs /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01 | grep size
dumpe2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Block size:               1024
Fragment size:            1024

Inode size:               128
Journal size:             32M
[root@OWP-18 cmc_backup]#

---------- Post updated at 04:11 PM ---------- Previous update was at 04:11 PM ----------

Thanks in advance

So this is confirmed, your file system is ext3 with block size 1 KB, and this limits file size to 16 GB.
You have to do your backup to another file system with a bigger block size. Or stream it to a tape.
--
Or recreate the /home file system with a bigger block size.
This would delete all your existing data, so you need a full backup before you do it!
Nowerdays mkfs should default to a 4 KB block size, and file size limit is 64 GB.
Or define explicit options as shown by

man mkfs.ext3

Hi friends,

Thanks,

Please help me how to convert ext3 file system tp ext4 file system.

my system version is

[root@OWP-18 ~]# uname -a
Linux OWP-18 2.6.18-348.el5 #1 SMP Wed Nov 28 21:22:00 EST 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

thanks in advance

Ext3 has a file size limitation. The maximum file size is 16 Gb only.
Here is a table which provides filesystem and file size limitations

Block size	Maximum
file size	Maximum
file system size
1 KiB
16 GiB
4 TiB

2 KiB
256 GiB
8 TiB

4 KiB
2 TiB
16 TiB

8 KiB[limits 1]
2 TiB
32 TiB