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IBM AIX: NetApp nfs mount directory is no longer writable

Question & Answer


Question

NetApp nfs mount directory is no longer writable even after increasing filesystem space when the filesystem ran out of inodes.

Answer

Directory of the NFS mount exported from NetApp can no longer be written to even after increasing the filesystem space when the filesytsem ran out of inodes.  Other directories of the nfs mount can be written to, also new files and directories in the nfs mount can be created.

For example, the NetApp NFS directory share mounted on AIX shows:
# nfsstat -m
…….
/testMnt from svm:/testMnt
 Flags:   vers=3,proto=tcp,auth=unix,hard,intr,dynamic,link,symlink,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,retrans=5,acregmin=30,acregmax=60,acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60
 All:     srtt=0 (0ms), dev=0 (0ms), cur=0 (0ms)
….
Size of the nfs mount directory shows ~335m
# ls -ld /testMnt/testDir
drwxrwxr-x 2 testUsr  testGrp  335,544,320 Mar 11 17:01 /testMnt/testDir
Number of inodes for the filesystem is at ~5m
Filesystem        1024-blocks      Free      %Used    Iused    %Iused Mounted on
……..
svm:/testMnt    239075328 124361264   48%  5605410    76% /testMnt
……
Creating a new file in the “/testMnt/testDir” directory fails with:
#touch testFile
touch: 0652-046 Cannot create testFile

NetApp has restriction on how big a directory can grow.  Default value is 320 MB, which allows for
4.3 million files for each directory.  When the threshold value is reached, directory can no longer be written to.   
The setting that regulates directory size on NetApp is  “Maxdirsize”  Once the directory size limit is reached/exceeded,  size of the directory cannot be reduced by removing files in the directory.  
To resolve the issue:
Have NetApp increase “Maxdirsize” value for the directory
or
Reduce the size of the directory:
  • remove an enough number of files in the directory to get the directory size to be below the max limit
  • copy remaining files to a brand new directory
  • delete existing directory 
  • rename the new directory to the deleted directory name

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Document Information

Modified date:
24 March 2025

UID

ibm17228791

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