resize2fs fails with "Cannot create filesystem with requested number of inodes while trying to resize <device>"

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Issue

  • While attempting to resize an EXT4 filesystem, resize2fs fails with the following message

    inodes (6348933120) must be less than 4294967295
resize2fs: Cannot create filesystem with requested number of inodes while trying to resize

Resolution

  • The filesystem was being resized to an unsupported size. Ext4 is supported up to the size of 50TiB
  • Ext4 file system can contain at most 4294967295 inodes.
  • Red Hat supports and recommends XFS for larger file systems.

Root Cause

The Ext4 has amount of inodes written in the super_block and this number is defined as unsigned 32 bit integer which limits the amount of possible inodes to 2^32-1, 4294967295.

This solution is part of Red Hat’s fast-track publication program, providing a huge library of solutions that Red Hat engineers have created while supporting our customers. To give you the knowledge you need the instant it becomes available, these articles may be presented in a raw and unedited form.

Comments