Questions tagged [filesystems]

A file system (or filesystem) is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device(s) which contain it.

A file system (or filesystem) is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device(s) which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the specific characteristics of the device. A tight coupling usually exists between the operating system and the file system. Some file systems provide mechanisms to control access to the data and metadata. Ensuring reliability is a major responsibility of a file system. Some file systems allow multiple programs to update the same file at nearly the same time.

1942 questions
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df in linux not showing correct free space after file removal

I have file servers which are used to store files. Files might reside there for a week, or for a year. Unfortunately, when I remove files from the server, df command doesn't reflect the freed up space. So eventually, the server gets filled up (df…
user11350
195
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6 answers

LVM dangers and caveats

I have recently started using LVM on some servers for hard drives larger than 1 TB. They're useful, expandable and quite easy to install. However, I could not find any data about the dangers and caveats of LVM. What are the downsides of using LVM?
Adam Matan
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SSL Certificate Location on UNIX/Linux

Is there any standard or convention for where SSL certificates and associated private keys should go on the UNIX/Linux filesystem?
John Topley
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FreeBSD: Directory called ^C (really!) - how to remove?

I made a typo: $ history 169 9:34 la /usr/local/etc/ 170 9:35 sudo mkdir ^C 171 9:36 sudo mkdir /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.d Now I have a file that is called ^C (ctrl+C)!! When I use ls I just see a questionmark (probably due to the locale?) %…
Mausy5043
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How to extend an ext4 partition and filesystem?

I have a 400GB disk with a 320GB ext4 partition. I would like to grow the ext4 partition to use the left space (80GB of free space). +--------------------------------+--------+ | ext4 | Free …
mimipc
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ZFS vs XFS

We're considering building a ~16TB storage server. At the moment, we're considering both ZFS and XFS as filesystem. What are the advantages, disadvantages? What do we have to look for? Is there a third, better option?
Tamas Czinege
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Drawbacks of mounting a filesystem with noatime?

Having every file be updated just when accessing them sounds like a waste. What's the catch with mounting a file system with the noatime option. What kind of applications/servers relies on the access time?
nos
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Why are my XFS filesystems suddenly consuming more space and full of sparse files?

I've run XFS filesystems as data/growth partitions for nearly 10 years across various Linux servers. I've noticed a strange phenomenon with recent CentOS/RHEL servers running version 6.2+. Stable filesystem usage became highly variable following…
ewwhite
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How do I determine the block size of an ext3 partition on Linux?

How do I determine the block size of an ext3 partition on Linux?
mike
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What is the difference between a soft (symbolic) link and a hard link?

I hear that you can now create soft links in Vista too. So, what is the difference between a soft (symbolic) link and a hard link on UNIX/Linux/Vista? Are there advantages of using one over the other? Or do they just serve two distinct purposes?
Aaron K
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Question marks showing in ls of directory. IO errors too

Has anyone seen this before? I've got a raid 5 mounted on my server and for whatever reason it started showing this: jason@box2:/mnt/raid1/cra$ ls -alh ls: cannot access e6eacc985fea729b2d5bc74078632738: Input/output error ls: cannot access…
jaymoo
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7 answers

filesystem for millions of small files

Which Linux filesystem would you choose for best speed in the following scenario: a hundred million files ~2k file size on average >95% read access pretty random access high concurrency (>100 processes) Note: The files are stored in a deep…
bene
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Linux/Windows/Unix/... file names: Which characters are allowed? Which are unescaped?

Which characters are allowed and which of them must be escaped on the command line in different operating systems?
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Linux - What directories should I exclude when backing up a server?

I'm backing up a Linux server and storing it on another server. I began with a simple rsync -aPh --del server.example.com:/ /mnt/backup Then someone pointed out that I shouldn't back up /proc, since you don't want to restore the /proc of one…
Amandasaurus
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What is the best Linux filesystem for MySQL (InnoDB)?

I tried to look for benchmark on the performances of various filesystems with MySQL InnoDB but couldn't find any. My database workload is the typical web-based OLTP, about 90% read, 10% write. Random IO. Among popular filesystems such as ext3, ext4,…
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