Hostgator

[misi]

Hello,

To maintain the highest level of performance on our shared servers we have a maximum inode (file) limit of 50,000 inodes (files) per account. The size of the file does not matter, only the number of files. For example, a DVD image (say, 4.5gb) only counts as one inode, or file. Our limit, as outlined in our terms of service, is 50,000 files per account. We generally don't hold people strictly to this limit, but at the same time we expect our users to respect the limits of the system. When an account has hundreds of thousands of files, it significantly degrades overall disk performance, as each file on the disk must be tracked/indexed.

An easy analogy would be a table of contents or glossary for a book. If the book only has a few hundred pages, the index or glossary is likely to be small and easy to search. If the book has 5,000 pages, finding what you want might take significantly longer. The file system on a server works in a similar way, just on a larger scale. Our experience has shown that 50,000 files per account is a fair number, and accounts that exceed that by a significant amount cause disk performance issues. This message is to inform you that the listed account has significantly exceeded our limits for disk inodes/files and could potentially lead to disk issues.

It is also important to realize that accounts that exceed the inode (file) limit are not backed up by our courtesy weekly backup service, per section 7b of our Terms of Service. Of course, we advise every user to run their own backups to be safe. Accounts over our the 50,000 inode limit are bypassed so that backups can complete in a timely fashion for everyone. Otherwise, accounts with hundreds of thousands or more inodes will utilize more server resources than other accounts, and could lead to file system errors on our backup servers.

This account will be re-checked again in 7 days to verify it is below 50,000 files. If this account remains above the maximum inode limit after repeated checks, we'll have to review the situation further and advise a course of action. It is critical that one of the following actions take place before that happens:


a) reduce the number of inodes/files. This change must be permanent; if you have a high number of cache files or similar, and you expect them to naturally exceed the inode limit again in the future, the configuration must be changed to limit the total number of cached files.

If you are completely unaware of the source of the inodes, it may be that you have left your default mailbox enabled, and never cleared it. Over time, it can fill up with spam, consuming hundreds of thousands of inodes. If you have a catch-all enabled on your account, this can greatly increase the amount of mail/spam that our account receives and will raise your inode usage quickly unless routinely emptied. If you would like assistance clearing these folders from unwanted email or removing the catch-all from your account, please let us know and we would be happy to assist you.


The default mailbox is located at:

/home/***/mail/cur
/home/***/mail/new


b) upgrade to dedicated service, where inode counts are no longer checked. In many cases, accounts that significantly exceed our inode/file limits have simply outgrown the shared environment, and a dedicated server is the logical choice. In many cases, the transfer from a shared to dedicated server will incur no charge. In rare situations, accounts with excessive numbers of accounts or users may require a fee; the transfer department would advise you of that fact prior to the transfer taking place. If you've read this far, it's clear you're serious about taking care of the issue and we can offer you 50% off off the first month's purchase of a dedicated server. To receive the discount, please:

- Reply to this email stating you'd like to upgrade. You will
automatically be assigned a ticket number, which will be
visible in the subject line. You may need to confirm your
email if this is the first time you've ever sent us a
ticket or emailed one of our departments.


- Order a dedicated server:
http://www.hostgator.com/billing/order/orderwiz.php

- Email sales@hostgator.com after placing your order. This
promotion is unadvertised, and must be manually approved.
You must reference the ticket # you receive (above) to
qualify for the discounted rate. This promotion only
applies to dedicated servers priced $ 219.00 or higher.


We thank you for taking the time to resolve this issue. If you have any questions or perhaps you are not sure what could be causing the high number of inodes, we can help you with that. Simply reply to this email and we will be more than happy to assist you.

Hmmm... Have to take care of the inodes...

What the hell are they? ??

Files... Only 50K of them?

 

[foxidrive]

What do you have hosted there misi?

 

[misi]

What do you have hosted there misi?

I see that you are currently below your 50k limit. You are currently at 44,168. Did you remove any emails or other files that would have caused the usage to drop? I have a breakdown of directories with 1k or more inodes which will show you where the remaining inodes are being used. Please let us know if you have any further questions.

13554 gallery
13545 copy of gallery
12636 guru
1743 garbage
1061 garbage2
1027 garbage3


Thanks,
***

Very little.
Looking for another host,don't have $219/month ...and even if I had wouldn't give for nothing.

- Order a dedicated server:
...
...priced $ 219.00 or higher.

On Yahoo I have 100s of thousands of files and they don't complain about them.

I like this host because they are very reliable for our forum.
Yahoo's database is rubbish,couldn't upgrade LG's with them, Gallery broke down with an upgrade.


Edit: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=660390

So far downtownhost is the winner...

 

[foxidrive]

I see... can you keep a local copy of the gallery instead of on the server? That'd keep LG's going for a while...

 

[misi]

I see... can you keep a local copy of the gallery instead of on the server? That'd keep LG's going for a while...

LG's going to stay as it is ATM,until I have some time to do something about it.
I do have a local copy of the old Yahoo gallery,took a while to download... (days)
Downloading-uploading small files takes time because the PC-server have to find a place for them,have to create the folders,subfolders,files.

Much easier to click on a folder on the server,copy it then paste it to another location on the server.
Any damage to the original folder?Copy back the backup.
Very simple. I thought...

 

[foxidrive]

Are you able to archive the backup into a ZIP file? That would take just one file.

 

[misi]

Are you able to archive the backup into a ZIP file? That would take just one file.

Good idea,I have to try it!
How to ZIP it on the server?
I know that the server can unzip somehow the uploaded ZIP files...

 

[misi]

Hmmm.... I might be getting close to the solution?

An email to Hostgator:

...Please let me use SSH...

Ten minutes later a reply arrived:

Thank you for contacting HostGator Support. Jailed Shell has been enabled for your littlegurus.net account.

When connecting to the server please be sure to use Port **** and login using your ******.

With SSH I might be able to use the ZIP facility on the server...
How to use SSH? Putty? Oh...
Challenges!

 

[foxidrive]

Hmmm.... I might be getting close to the solution?

With SSH I might be able to use the ZIP facility on the server...

Good luck there misi. On another hosting place I was told that they had ZIP backup ability in the hosting control panel. I gather you have looked but maybe they don't provide that in their control panel.

 

[misi]

On another hosting place I was told that they had ZIP backup ability in the hosting control panel. I gather you have looked but maybe they don't provide that in their control panel.

They do provide it for backing up the whole site.(including databases)

backup-8.7.2008_01-30-34_******.tar.gz 1931050 k
To download it often... Hmmm... I would need VDSL2+

 

[foxidrive]

Does that include the second copy of the gallery?
How large are the garbage areas?

 

[misi]

Does that include the second copy of the gallery?
How large are the garbage areas?

Yes it includes it.
Its size is negligible(in a ZIP file), about 20MB.
(Only a few images there, from the Yahoo gallery the images are still on my harddisk)
LG's size is over 1 GB.(Arcade is the hungry one)
The rest(garbage=huge MPEG files) is a little less then 1 GB.
Maybe they have to go?
Arcade has to go?

Has to invite Wombat to do the downloading-uploading without zipping? ??
(In his opinion, on the old BBE, it is fast. )

 

[foxidrive]

At least with SSH access you might be able to archive the forum (and exclude the arcade, presuming you have a backup of that at home) and also include the gallery. That would solve the issue with lots of files.

 

[misi]

At least with SSH access you might be able to archive the forum (and exclude the arcade, presuming you have a backup of that at home) and also include the gallery. That would solve the issue with lots of files.

I'll download-install PuTTY ,after that will see that what is possible with SSH ...
Tomorrow is the day for that.

 

[misi]

Putty is terrible! Have to do everything on the command line!
Worse than DOS!


I'm going to be a Linux expert without ever using Linux with the help of Putty!
Putty is excellent!

zip -r myfirstzip gallery

DONE with all the subdirectories,ready to download!

How much research did it need to achieve it?
Meh...

 

[foxidrive]

Sounds good...

 

[misi]

backup-8.7.2008_01-30-34_******.tar.gz 1931050 k
To download it often... Hmmm... I would need VDSL2+

Just for the experiment , I downloaded the whole lot.
backup-8.7.2008... + the newly created ZIP file of gallery.
In less then two hours!
Started with backup-8: 420 KBs
Found it to be too slow, started to download gallery as well.
The second streem came down with a speed of 410 KBs.

I was tempted to start downloading another 2-3 files in the same time to test our server's capacity!
Didn't do it. We still have a host!

 

[foxidrive]

misi, check that all the files are inside the tgz file and no essential files are zero bytes.

I mention this because under Windows any files in use can't be properly backed up (without using Volume Shadow Copy mode). It will pay to be sure that the archive is complete under the hosts OS.

 

[misi]

misi, check that all the files are inside the tgz file and no essential files are zero bytes.

I mention this because under Windows any files in use can't be properly backed up (without using Volume Shadow Copy mode). It will pay to be sure that the archive is complete under the hosts OS.

Good point Foxi! Thanks!
Meh...Must look for some other solution.

Shadow copies of volumes and shared folders are configured from the server. You can set up shadow copies for all editions of this version of Windows except Starter Edition, Home Basic Edition, and Home Premium Edition.

One is for sure: cannot upload the Gallery backup to Yahoo.
Before upgrading it I have downloaded a full copy of it.(Without SSH)
Lucky me! The upgrade went sour.
Errr... not so lucky.
Cannot upload, because the file names in the backup have spaces in them.(forbidden with Yahoo)
How could they be used originally?
Dunno...Gallery managed it somehow.(escape characters?)

Example:
User1 uploaded : pic1.jpg
Stored in the file system as : user1 pic1.jpg(note the space)

With FTP, downloaded to Windows as user1 pic1.jpg
Fine
Trying to upload it to its original space as user1 pic1.jpg: Error.

Started to delete manually the spaces from the file names but gave up because there were just too many of them.(picks + thumbnails)

 

[foxidrive]

The space is %20 in *nix when there has to be one.

Maybe if you uploaded a zip/tgz and extracted it on the server to a different folder it would work...