IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 164 – 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

Applications fail to create new files even though df shows space available. Logging and temp file operations stop, impacting services.

Environment & Reproduction

Occurs on JFS2 mounted with low NBPI on filesystems holding many small files.

df -gi /appdata
oslevel -s
uname -a

Root Cause Analysis

Cause is exhaustion of inode entries; JFS2 file count is bounded by allocation parameters at creation.

Quick Triage

Confirm inode usage and identify directories with many small files.

df -gi /appdata

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Capture deeper evidence to isolate the failure path.

df -gi /appdata
find /appdata -xdev -type f | wc -l
ls -lR /appdata | wc -l
lsfs -q /appdata
istat /appdata

Solution – Primary Fix

Apply the proven primary fix in a controlled change window.

find /appdata/cache -type f -mtime +7 -delete
chfs -a size=+1G /appdata
backup; recreate; restore

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use these alternatives when the primary fix is blocked by environmental constraints.

umount /appdata
crfs -v jfs2 -g datavg -m /appdata -a size=20G -a logname=INLINE
restore -rqf /backup/appdata.bk

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Confirm the system meets acceptance criteria after the change.

df -gi /appdata
find /appdata -xdev | wc -l
lsfs /appdata

Rollback Plan

Revert cleanly if regressions appear during validation.

umount /appdata
fsck -y /dev/fslv01
mount /appdata

Prevention & Hardening

Reduce recurrence with monitoring and preventive tuning.

logrotate-equivalent via cron
find ... -daystart cleanup
backup quarterly

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to JFS2 inline log corruption, snapshot growth, and tmpfs misuse.

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 AIX 7.3 Filesystems guide, crfs and chfs man pages.