[comp.unix.questions] Ultrix: out of gnodes

DHASKIN%CLARKU.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu (02/17/89)

Help!  I have a call in to DEC/Atlanta on this but they're notoriously slow and
I was hoping someone out there may have encountered this before.

We're moving our Ultrix system to another uVAX II (actually a II/GPX) so that
we can install workstation software with it.  To do so I built a new kernel on
the old system (also a MicroVAX II but with a different device configuration)
and physically moved the boot disk to the new machine.  It boots just fine and
runs fine in single-user mode.  I can't tell if it's shortly after I go into
multiuser mode or when I try to do anything substantial in multiuser mode ("ps"
in this case counts as substantial) but the system goes bananas with console
messages such as "gnode: table is full" and "out of gnodes".

I have discerned that gnodes are DEC's equivalent of inodes, but why is this
happening and what can I do?  Do I need to rebuild the kernel with something
tweaked?  Do I need to rebuild the file system?  What should I be looking at?
The documentation is, as usual, skimpy.

Any enlightenment would be welcomed, and I will of course summarize responses
to the list.

Thanks in advance,

Denis Haskin

p.s. You may also try to reach me as denis@bambam.wellesley.

parker@waters.mpr.ca (Ross Parker) (02/18/89)

In article <18391@adm.BRL.MIL> DHASKIN%CLARKU.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu writes:
>Help!  I have a call in to DEC/Atlanta on this but they're notoriously slow and
>I was hoping someone out there may have encountered this before.
>
.....
>in this case counts as substantial) but the system goes bananas with console
>messages such as "gnode: table is full" and "out of gnodes".
>
>I have discerned that gnodes are DEC's equivalent of inodes, but why is this
>happening and what can I do?  Do I need to rebuild the kernel with something
>tweaked?  Do I need to rebuild the file system?  What should I be looking at?
>The documentation is, as usual, skimpy.

The size of the gnode (generic inode) table depends on a number of system
constants, the easiest to fix is MAXUSERS. Go into /usr/sys/conf/YOUR_SYSTEM,
and increase 'MAXUSERS' to something larger than what you've got. Config,
make clean, and make. Voila... more gnodes!

Note that this does *not* violate your license. You can do whatever you want
with MAXUSERS - the license restriction doesn't use it.

We run a Microvax 3600 with a 2-user license here with MAXUSERS set to 32.
32 is about the minimum for a timesharing system or a system that does
any real work (we have 10 vaxes here... all are set to at least 32).

FYI, gnodes are an in-core abstraction of the inode. They are used to
reference files in both normally mounted file systems and NFS mounted
file systems. 4.3 BSD has the same idea, but they're called 'vnodes'.

Hope this helps.... (I'm sending by mail also to make sure you get this).

Ross Parker      uunet!ubc-cs!mpre!parker       |
Microtel Pacific Research Ltd.			| You can't erase the dream,
Burnaby, B.C.,					| you can only wake me up...
Canada, eh?					|