On Sun 21 August 2011 21:23:15 Andrea Conti did opine thusly: > > Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on > > /dev/mapper/weird-inodetest 1024 1024 0 100% /mnt > > > > /dev/mapper/weird-inodetest 2048 1024 1024 50% /mnt > > Then I stand corrected. I guess that the man page for mke2fs saying > that the inode count of a filesystem cannot be changed does not > take resizing into account.
Correct. A resized fs is technically a re-formatted fs. So to the ultra-pedantic the man page is actually still correct. > I also thought that if resize2fs had the ability to extend the inode > table, then it would have options to give the user some degree of > control over the process. Apparently that's not the case. inodes are not dynamic, they are laid down at exact points on the disk and the info about their location is in the superblock(s). The simplistic explanation is something like this: You have X number of inodes, spaced Y blocks apart on a disk of size Z bytes. A directory listing declares a file is at inode #M therefore it's physical position on the disk is guaranteed to be at M * (block size) and the filesystem driver can seek directly to that spot. Two things are immediately self-evident: 1. Changing the density of inodes is not realistic (unless you want to invest the same effort that went into Window's defrag) 2. Fixed inodes are an ancient concept that provoke an "Eh? Say what? You still doing that????" response. ReiserFS was developed in part to address this and make an -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
