ext3 dies without inodes

[David Fries <dfries@mail.win.org>]

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I'm runnig 2.4.19 and Debian (but I compile my own kernel from the
sources).  ext3 is forcing the block device to be read only when I run
out of inodes, and the only way out is reboot (that I could tell).
This is wrose than a good deal of kernel panics I've had.  Is
2.4.20prewhatever any better with reguard to this error?

My system is running low on inodes (my fault), and back when I was
using ext2 everything was fine, I would run out, the kernel would give
the message about no more space on disk for everything that needed an
inode until I freed up some.  With ext3 I get one message saying no
more space on disk and then everything else gives, readonly file
system.

After I hit the problem accidently, I verified running out of inodes
was the problem on purpose.  I would hate to think that I had to
reboot everytime I filled up my harddrive, and it is an equally bad
behavior to reboot when I run out of inodes.

Here is some dmesg output.
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in ext3_new_inode: error 28
Aborting journal on device ide0(3,2).
Remounting filesystem read-only
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in ext3_create: IO failure
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs abort (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_remount: Abort forced by user
SpacedOut:/mnt/david/tuxscreen/buildroot-tux/build$ df -i
Filesystem            Inodes   IUsed   IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/hda2             362304  361710     594  100% /
/dev/hdb1            1664640  210988 1453652   13% /mnt/hdb1


-- 
David Fries <dfries@mail.win.org>
http://fries.net/~david/pgpkey.txt

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