[Nix-dev] Re: Error: NIX on a little big file system

[Eelco Dolstra]

Pjotr Prins wrote:
> Hi Eelco,
> 
> When I run Nix on a big file system I get:
> 
> root at pjotr-32:~/svn/nixpkgs# nix-env -f . -i cmake --show-trace
> installing `cmake-2.6.4'
> error: while instantiating the derivation named `cmake-2.6.4' at `/home/pjotr/svn/nixpkgs/pkgs/development/tools/build-managers/cmake/default.nix:4:7':
> while evaluating the derivation attribute `setupHook' at `/home/pjotr/svn/nixpkgs/pkgs/development/tools/build-managers/cmake/default.nix:9:12':
> preallocating file of 1087 bytes: Value too large for defined data type

Sounds like a bug in the kernel or in the NFS (?) server.

As a workaround, you can look for this bit of code in src/libutil/archive.cc:

#if HAVE_POSIX_FALLOCATE
        if (len) {
            errno = posix_fallocate(fd, 0, len);
            /* Note that EINVAL may indicate that the underlying
               filesystem doesn't support preallocation (e.g. on
               OpenSolaris).  Since preallocation is just an
               optimisation, ignore it. */
            if (errno && errno != EINVAL)
                throw SysError(format("preallocating file of %1% bytes") % len);
        }
#endif

and change the "#if HAVE_POSIX_FALLOCATE" to "#if 0", or ignore EOVERFLOW just
like EINVAL.

We could also just ignore all errors from posix_fallocate, since it's just an
optimisation anyway.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/