Assertion failed: 0, file srvproc.cc", line 4117: Please Guide

[dhiraj_c]

Hello Sir,

I am currently working on Coda 5.3.20 on Redhat 7.2 for testing purpose. I
am trying design a large and scalable distributed storage system for a
project of my own.

I installed coda server on 2 machines one scm and other non-scm. I
replicated a volume between the scm and non scm server.

For the testing purpose of filling up the total space on both the servers
hard drives, (which is 40 GB) (PS. I have kept rvm size as 315MB), i wrote
a script to copy 10000 files initially on the replicated volume.

After successfully copying around 8000 files, I got an error on client
side as Input/Output error, and the coda server process died on both the
server machines.

On going through the server error logs, if found the following error.

00:33:49 Create returns 27 on coda12_8050.jpg (0x1000003.0x7454.0x201f)
Assertion failed: 0, file
"/usr/src/redhat/BUILD/coda-5.3.20/coda-src/vice/srvproc.cc", line 4117
EXITING! Bye!

While searching the coda mailing list i came upon the following threads,

http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/maillists/codalist/codalist-2003/5708.html
http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/maillists/codalist/codalist-2003/5709.html

which was also confirmed in the following article

http://coda.wikidev.net/Limitations

Also note that I did not create any sub directories in my replicated
volume, and started copying files directly.

Now I have the following doubts and questions.

1.) What does it really mean by directory size of 256kb? does it mean the
directory can contain information of its contents inside it (sub-dirs or
files) of 256kb characters only?

2.) How should I solve this problem of limited files in a directory? does
it mean I have to create sub directories in the volume to store the files?

Note. In my actual implementation of a distributed storage system in need
to store around 20000000 files of 300 KB size which can be accommodated
easily in 315 MB of RVM.

3.) Is there a work-around for this problem or is this problem solved in
coda 6.0 or above?

with regards,
dhiraj chawla

[u+codalist-p4pg]

Hello Dhiraj,

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 03:27:15PM +0530, dhiraj_c@... wrote:
> 1.) What does it really mean by directory size of 256kb? does it mean the
> directory can contain information of its contents inside it (sub-dirs or
> files) of 256kb characters only?

No. It is file/subdirectory names with some meta information which
can not together exceed 256K.

> 2.) How should I solve this problem of limited files in a directory? does
> it mean I have to create sub directories in the volume to store the files?

Yes.

> Note. In my actual implementation of a distributed storage system in need
> to store around 20000000 files of 300 KB size which can be accommodated
> easily in 315 MB of RVM.

sorry to tell you,
you either mistyped the number above or erroneously interpreted
the "limitations" data.

About 768Mb RVM might be enough for about 10^6 files.

Your expected number of files seems to be an order of magnitude higher,
this is not going to work without tricks (running multiple servers
hosting different volumes) which leads to a lot of additional administration
burden (like making sure the data amounts are properly distributed between
the servers).

> 3.) Is there a work-around for this problem or is this problem solved in
> coda 6.0 or above?

The limited size of the directory is still there, but you also seem to have
another severe problem with the number of files.

Using an old version of Coda is highly questionable in any case.
Coda is moving forward, version 5 is by all standards obsoleted.

Best regards,
Rune