Host system reported that the file size limit - Reported incorrectly

[David Crenshaw]

I am running Ubuntu 7.10 on a Dual Core X6800 with 4GB Ram. I am running a WinXp SP2 client with a C: Drive VDI of 100GB and a D: Drive VDI of 100GD; both are dynamic disks.

The Ubuntu host is running all partitions/file systems as ext3. All partitions are at least 300GB with the two partitions that hold the VDI files having over 200GB free space on each.

I keep getting the following error. Usually happens when running a file sharing program on the WinXp guest.

"Host system reported that the file size limit has been exceeded. VM execution is suspended. You need to move the file to a filesystem which allows bigger files."

Given the amounts of space I have dedicated to the VDIs and base file systems; and the fact I am using ext3; how can this be? Is this a bug in the software?

[David Crenshaw]

Frank, This is the output you were looking for. One file is on /home (/dev/sda7) and one is on /data (/dev/sdb2). The dumpe2fs output is below. I also uploaded the log file from today.

dccrens@cavermax-ubuntu:/home$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2             55541916   2974680  49745824   6% /
varrun                 1422464       248   1422216   1% /var/run
varlock                1422464         0   1422464   0% /var/lock
procbususb             1422464       168   1422296   1% /proc/bus/usb
udev                   1422464       168   1422296   1% /dev
devshm                 1422464         0   1422464   0% /dev/shm
lrm                    1422464     34696   1387768   3% /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile
/dev/sdb2            258453078  33811629 208918464  14% /data
/dev/sdd2            302513034      8239 283359332   1% /data2
/dev/sda7            292293348  36317332 244097880  13% /home
/dev/sda1            155661784  71093524  84568260  46% /media/C
/dev/sdd1            105474724   8980476  96494248   9% /media/D
/dev/sdc1            395150772 141963880 253186892  36% /media/E
/dev/sdc5            337421192 257090876  80330316  77% /media/F
/dev/sdb1            418114840 340531072  77583768  82% /media/G
/dev/sde1            488384000 366845924 121538076  76% /media/USB
/dev/sda4            207520080   8437132 188541500   5% /usr/local
/dev/sda6             10483700    558844   9392304   6% /var

sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sda7
[sudo] password for dccrens:
dumpe2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          a245dd29-d965-4483-adbd-f926cb523c96
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal resize_inode dir_index filetype needs_recovery sparse_super large_file
Filesystem flags:         signed directory hash 
Default mount options:    (none)
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              37126144
Block count:              74238365
Reserved block count:     2969534
Free blocks:              64052035
Free inodes:              37109124
First block:              0
Block size:               4096
Fragment size:            4096
Reserved GDT blocks:      1006
Blocks per group:         32768
Fragments per group:      32768
Inodes per group:         16384
Inode blocks per group:   512
Filesystem created:       Fri Feb 22 14:02:01 2008
Last mount time:          Wed Apr 23 08:38:45 2008
Last write time:          Wed Apr 23 08:38:45 2008
Mount count:              19
Maximum mount count:      80
Last checked:             Fri Apr  4 19:58:31 2008
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Wed Oct  1 19:58:31 2008
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128
Journal inode:            8
Default directory hash:   tea
Directory Hash Seed:      1707f144-36fc-4f7f-8c03-43fd119076ee
Journal backup:           inode blocks
Journal size:             128M

dccrens@cavermax-ubuntu:/home$ sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sdb2
dumpe2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          6368746f-2074-616b-6f65-207575696400
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal needs_recovery large_file
Default mount options:    (none)
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              78616576
Block count:              314459712
Reserved block count:     15722985
Free blocks:              224641449
Free inodes:              78616561
First block:              1
Block size:               1024
Fragment size:            1024
Blocks per group:         8192
Fragments per group:      8192
Inodes per group:         2048
Inode blocks per group:   256
Last mount time:          Wed Apr 23 08:38:45 2008
Last write time:          Wed Apr 23 08:38:45 2008
Mount count:              26
Maximum mount count:      80
Last checked:             Thu Apr  3 21:16:09 2008
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Tue Sep 30 21:16:09 2008
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128
Journal inode:            8
Journal backup:           inode blocks
Journal size:             8M

Hope this helps. I would really like to get this solved. Regards Dave

[David Crenshaw]

This also happens when using Windows XP's "update" feature to install OS patches and updates.

[Frank Mehnert]

Hi dccrens, the problem comes from your partition on /dev/sdb2. For some reason it has a block size of 1KB which allows a maximum file size of 16GB (plus some bytes). I'm pretty sure that /data/dccrensdata/WinSP2Ddrive.vdi has this size. The partition on /dev/sda7 has a block size of 4KB (which is the default) allowing a maximum file size of 2TB, see ​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2 . We will try to improve the error message in future releases and warn the user already when starting a VM. You should be able to reformat /dev/sdb2 with

mke2fs -j -Olarge_file -b 4096

Make sure you backup that partition first as all data will be lost when formatting.

[David Crenshaw]

Frank, You hit it o the money. Surprisingly I had two file systems that had block sizes of 1024. Both of these partitions were "converted" using (GPARTED) from NTFS partitions when I installed Ubuntu some time ago. Somehow they must have defaulted to a smaller block size.

I moved the VDI files to another partition; used mke2fs -j -b 4096 on each partition (after unmounting it); remounted the partitions; moved the VDI files back and restarted VirtualBox. No more problems.

We can call this one resolved. Thanks again.

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks for your feedback.