The NSS Internal Volume (POOLNAME_IV_) reports running out of diskspace

  • 3341454
  • 14-Nov-2007
  • 27-Apr-2012

Environment


Novell Open Enterprise Server (NetWare based)
Novell NetWare 6.5
Novell NetWare 6.0

Situation

The NSS Internal Volume (POOLNAME_IV_) reports running out of diskspace.

Resolution

An 'OUT OF SPACE' alert can be generated for two different reasons for ZLSS volumes under Novell NetWare 6.0 and later.

1) The blocks used by a volume is about to exceed the 'Volume Quota' assigned to the volume.
2) The pool runs out of free blocks.

Internal volumes are NEVER assigned a 'Volume Quota'. Therefore, whenever a 'OUT OF SPACE' alert is generated for them it simply means that the pool is out of free blocks. The system uses the internal volume to store system objects that belong to the pool. For example, the salvage tree and the free block tree are 'owned' by the internal volume. Whenever a block is allocated to one of these objects it gets charged to the internal volume. If the allocation fails because the pool has no free space then a 'OUT OF SPACE' alert with the internal volume name is generated.

For logical volumes, nssmu defaults 'Volume Quota' to 'grow to pool size'. This is just a fancy way of saying that the volume has no 'Volume Quota'. Therefore, a logical volume created with default settings will only run out of space when the pool is out of blocks.

If a pool is out of free blocks then space on the pool must be freed. In users terms, this means that user files must be deleted on ANY volume that resides on the pool. There is no requirement that the 'volume' that was mentioned in the alert have files deleted from it. Generally, the internal volume does not have files on it. Some 'snapshot' tools place files on it, but these tools control the deleting of their files.

The bottom line is the same no matter if a logical volume or an internal volume shows up in the alert message. One or more user files must be deleted from ANY volume on the pool for more data to be added to ANY volume.

If a volume has a 'Volume Quota' that caused the 'OUT OF SPACE' alert then files from THAT volume must be deleted prior to added more data to that volume.

This will not be fixed in new NSS code, solution to this issue is to free up disk space and prevent the NSS pool from running out of diskspace.

Additional Information

Additional search terms (most common volume names):

SYS_IV_
DATA_IV_
POOL_IV_
APPS_IV_
VOL_IV_