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

[Pjotr Prins]

Tools like gzip have shown similar errors in the past. But now work
fine on my sshfs mount point. It is nix specific.

Pj.

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 03:33:42PM +0100, Eelco Dolstra wrote:
> 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/