Hi,

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky wrote on 2011-08-08 18:39:06 -0400 [Re: [BackupPC-users] 
Too many links : where is the problem ?]:
> That being said, I hope you would agree that the default 32000 number
> seems reasonable given that ext2/ext3 is pretty common and seems to be
> the least 'max' number of any commonly used hard-link-allowing
> filesystem.

definitely.

> Given that exceeding the max is typically an infrequent
> special case and given that BackupPC seamlessly handles 'overflows' by
> creating a second pool instance, there doesn't seem to be any good
> reason for a user to change this number unless you (a) know what you
> are doing (b) have a special case where the savings from avoiding
> creating a second pool chain instance will be substantial...

That is what I meant to indicate. There is no reason to worry about it, but if
you know what your FS supports and want to change it, there is also no reason
not to. You should just remember to check the setting if you ever migrate to
a different FS (I don't suppose newer kernel versions will ever *lower* the
limit). This *is* a parameter for tuning performance, but one with very low
impact (or even no impact at all), provided the value is in a reasonable range,
which the default is.

> Finally, out of curiosity, I grepped the BackupPC code base for the
> error language "too many links" cited verbatimu by the OP and found that such
> a phrase only occurs in the comments and hence is not even a valid
> error code...

Actually it's EMLINK, errno 31. So it might either be from rsync as suggested
elsewhere (though I can't see why rsync would encounter that during a
*backup*), or it's "$!" in the BackupPC source.

> so while this thread has been interesting regarding the
> general nature of max fs links, the OP really hasn't given us anything
> to help him address his specific problem -- a point that we have both made
> originally!

I'm certainly not going to wade through the code looking for "$!" ...
particularly since the code seems to (at least attempt to) handle link
failures gracefully, so it's still not evident what the problem actually is.

Regards,
Holger

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
uberSVN's rich system and user administration capabilities and model 
configuration take the hassle out of deploying and managing Subversion and 
the tools developers use with it. Learn more about uberSVN and get a free 
download at:  http://p.sf.net/sfu/wandisco-dev2dev
_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
List:    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki:    http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/