Linux – How to display the ext4 inode flags

ext4filesystemslinux

We cannot create more than 65000 sub-directories on a ext4 file systems and one suspicion we have is that the directory was created with an older version of ext4 or a different feature set.

I know how to find some basic information:

> stat .
  File: ‘.’
  Size: 4096            Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   directory
Device: 801h/2049d      Inode: 2           Links: 24
Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2017-12-04 09:41:00.892098776 +0000
Modify: 2017-12-04 09:58:37.576216794 +0000
Change: 2017-12-04 09:58:37.576216794 +0000
 Birth: -

I'm interested in the more detailed ext4 flags, e.g. if the directory is linear or hash-based.

How can we view the settings of the inode, e.g. the flags?

Best Answer

Use stat on the directory.

However you are actually hitting a limit of the file system and this can cause performance issues with your storage. The common solution is to partition your namespace in a more structured way, or, depending on what your requirements are, a more flexible filesystem such as xfs, zfs or btrfs.

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