Max filesize on NFS? 4G?

[Linda Walsh]

I was just surprised by hitting a 4GB file limit on NFS -- am running
Suse 10.2 on client (currently running SuSE2.6.18.2-34-bigsmp),
and SuSE 9.3 (with vanilla 2.6.20) on server.

The target file system (xfs) supports large files. I was running an
"xfsdump" |bzip2>remotefile

I'm surprised to be hit by the small file limit on NFS. Is there some
specific parameter I need to support large files?

The same command, run locally on the server, runs "fine" (>4GB ok), so
it definitely seems to be a NFS related problem.

Ideas? Help?

Thanks,
Linda

[Mike Noble]

Post by Linda Walsh
I was just surprised by hitting a 4GB file limit on NFS -- am running
Suse 10.2 on client (currently running SuSE2.6.18.2-34-bigsmp),
and SuSE 9.3 (with vanilla 2.6.20) on server.
The target file system (xfs) supports large files. I was running an
"xfsdump" |bzip2>remotefile
I'm surprised to be hit by the small file limit on NFS. Is there some
specific parameter I need to support large files?
The same command, run locally on the server, runs "fine" (>4GB ok), so
it definitely seems to be a NFS related problem.
Ideas? Help?
Thanks,
Linda

4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.

Mike

[Alexey Eremenko]

Post by Mike Noble
4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.

Basically, NFS on x86 arch has this limit ?
How about NFS on x86-64 arch ?

Most software for x86 has no this limitation - look at ext3.

-Alexey

[Randall R Schulz]

Post by Mike Noble
...
4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.

Not really.

4 x 2^32 is the limit of a 32-bit word (unsigned).

Every x86 processor produced in the past ... 10? 15? 20? years can
perform 64-bit arithmetic.

Post by Mike Noble
Mike

RRS

[Randall R Schulz]

Post by Randall R Schulz

Post by Mike Noble
...
4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.

Not really.
4 x 2^32 is the limit of a 32-bit word (unsigned).

Duh...

2^32 is the limit of an unsigned 32-bit word, of course.

2^30 is a "binary billion", and four of those are 4 gigs.


RRS

[Carlos E. R.]

Post by Mike Noble

Post by Linda Walsh
I'm surprised to be hit by the small file limit on NFS. Is there some
specific parameter I need to support large files?
The same command, run locally on the server, runs "fine" (>4GB ok), so
it definitely seems to be a NFS related problem.

4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.

That's absurd. I'm using a 32 bit processor and I have files of 9 gigas,
so having large files is not an intrinsic processor limitation.

Actually, if you look at the opensuse manual, «Table 17.2. Maximum Sizes
of File Systems (On-Disk Format)»
<http://localhost/usr/share/doc/manual/opensuse-manual_en/manual/sec.filesystems.lfs.html#tab.maxsize>
shows the large file support limits for NFS:

File System File Size (Bytes) File System Size (Bytes)
- --------------------+-------------------+----------------------------
NFSv2 (client side) 2^31 (2 GiB) 2^63 (8 EiB)
NFSv3 (client side) 2^63 (8 EiB) 2^63 (8 EiB)


The kernel limit for 32 bit processors is 2TiB (2^41 bytes).


So, 4GiB is very far from the limit. Either there is some parameter needed
somewhere, or there is a bug.


- --
Cheers,
Carlos E. R.

[Teruel de Campo MD]

Guys,

The file size depends on the file system where it resides not of the
CPU. Of course up to a degree. I remember from my os/2 days creating tar
files of the whole system, I could do it in a JFS formatted partition
but not in a fat because of size limitations.

-=terry(Denver)=-

Post by Randall R Schulz

Post by Randall R Schulz

Post by Mike Noble
...
4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.

Not really.
4 x 2^32 is the limit of a 32-bit word (unsigned).

Duh...
2^32 is the limit of an unsigned 32-bit word, of course.
2^30 is a "binary billion", and four of those are 4 gigs.
RRS

[Geir A. Myrestrand]

Post by Mike Noble

Post by Linda Walsh
I was just surprised by hitting a 4GB file limit on NFS -- am running
Suse 10.2 on client (currently running SuSE2.6.18.2-34-bigsmp),
and SuSE 9.3 (with vanilla 2.6.20) on server.
The target file system (xfs) supports large files. I was running an
"xfsdump" |bzip2>remotefile
I'm surprised to be hit by the small file limit on NFS. Is there some
specific parameter I need to support large files?
The same command, run locally on the server, runs "fine" (>4GB ok), so
it definitely seems to be a NFS related problem.
Ideas? Help?
Thanks,
Linda

4 GB is the limit of a 32bit processor.
Mike

Looks more like she may be using NFSv2. Try NFSv3 instead. You specify
it as a mount option.