IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 110 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Writes fail with ENOSPC even though df shows free blocks.

Environment & Reproduction

Filesystem with many small files (mail, cache) on JFS2.

Root Cause Analysis

JFS2 inode allocation limit reached for current size.

Quick Triage

Run df -i /fs to confirm inode usage at 100%.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Identify hot directories with du -a /fs | sort -n | tail.

Solution – Primary Fix

Grow FS with chfs -a size=+1G /fs which adds inodes proportionally.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Move files to a new FS created with larger nbpi via crfs -a nbpi=.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

df -i shows headroom and writes succeed.

Rollback Plan

If extended improperly, shrink with chfs -a size=- and restore.

Prevention & Hardening

Right-size nbpi at creation for known small-file workloads.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Often pairs with quotacheck/quota errors.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.3.

View all aix-7.3 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

IBM Docs: JFS2, chfs, crfs.