Why is total inodes count of XFS filesystem not constant ?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • XFS supports dynamic inode allocation. i.e. the inodes are allocated as needed as per the files created.
  • Sudden exhaustion of inodes on XFS files system.
  • The inode max count changes on iterative df -i of file system.
  • Total inodes count differs once the application starts.

    • During the problem(when the application is in use)
     # df -i  /data
     Filesystem          Inodes   IUsed    IFree     IUse%    Mounted on
     /dev/mapper/VG-LV   57085024 54386345 2698679   96%      /data
    
    • After resolution (When the application is not in use)
    # df -i /data
     Filesystem        Inodes      IUsed     IFree         IUse%   Mounted on
     /dev/mapper/VG-LV 2321190784  54342614  2266848170    3%      /data
    
    • Note that IUsed (column 3) stays almost exactly the same -- in both cases, there are ~54 million inodes used.
    • But during the problem, the number of inodes (column 2) changes drastically - from 2.3 billion (2300 million) - down to 57 million.

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • XFS

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