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Different 'df -i' and 'mmdf' results against a GPFS file system

Question & Answer


Question

Intermittently, 'df -i' against GPFS (General Parallel File System ) wrongly shows full on a GPFS file system.
For example, linux OS command 'df -i' shows the file system inode is full 100%.
$ df -i
Filesystem                                Inodes   IUsed      IFree IUse% Mounted on
...
DATA0001                             615168  613888       1280  100% /DATA0001       
...
Running GPFS command 'mmdf', it shows differently showing there are free inodes.
   
$ /usr/lpp/mmfs/bin/mmdf DATA0001
disk                disk size  failure holds    holds              free KB             free KB
name                    in KB    group metadata data        in full blocks        in fragments
--------------- ------------- -------- -------- ----- -------------------- -------------------
..
                =============                         ==================== ===================
(total)             629145600                             625900544 ( 99%)          7360 ( 0%)
Inode Information
-----------------
Number of used inodes:            4162
Number of free inodes:          611006
Number of allocated inodes:     615168
Maximum number of inodes:       615168
```
And running 'df -i' again, it shows same as 'mmdf' usage while this showed 100% before running mmdf.

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Document Information

Modified date:
30 April 2025

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ibm16219258