A GoDaddy linux Virtual Dedicated Server (Plesk) that I am managing recently had the most unsettling problem. It acted as if there was no more disk space, even though it was only half full. All Inodes were full, but deleting files would only make the _total inode count_ decrease. So if resources were freed up they would then disappear, until there were no Inodes available.

When I first called Help Desk, they stated that Plesk needed HD space to run and that, also, they couldn’t help because my server is unmanaged. They suggested I  buy more space but I decided to investigate first.

I started by removing a large file from the system but it did not help, so I checked the inode count using df -i and found that all of my inodes (about 100,000) were used up. This can happen when a system contains many small files. In most file systems the number of inodes is fixed and can become a limiting factor.

After more investigation (df -f) the filesystem of that server is Reiser fs - which, it turns out, creates inodes dynamically.

With that information in hand I put in a detailed ticket with GoDaddy (which, of course, required convincing the operator). The next day I was notified that the ticket was escalated. A day later, I finally received an email saying that the problem had been fixed and that they were sorry for the inconvenience (fyi - between 2 and 3 days of downtime!). Magically enough I suddenly had plenty of Inodes to work with!

So what’s the take? A greedy co-host? A honest misconfiguration? Some very weird quota?

One thing is sure: if you see something like that happen with your VDS, put some pressure on GoDaddy to fix it.