Re: Filesystem limits

[Sad Clouds <cryintothebluesky%googlemail.com@localhost>]

On Sunday 17 January 2010 02:24:42 der Mouse wrote:
> > Is there a portable way of finding out the limits for the maximum
> > number of files and directories that can be created under a give
> > directory?
> 
> I doubt it.  Traditional Unix has no such limits, and at least some of
> the more popular filesystems NetBSD supports don't.  There are (and
> have been) per-mount-point limits, set at filesystem create time, but
> that's not very closely related.  (If you do want them, look at
> statfs(2) and/or fstatfs(2) for an API, or df -i for command-line.)

Maybe I should have rephrased my question, i.e. not "filesystem limits", but 
"per directory limits".

I can't create more than 32766 subdirectories in a given directory. If I run a 
test program, which creates subdirectories (1, 2, 3...N) in a loop, after 
32766 it exits with:

p3smp$ ./a.out
mkdir() error: : Too many links
i = 32766

Where is this "Too many links" coming from? Is it a filesystem limit, or a 
dynamically adjustable sysctl limit? Is there a way to increase this limit, or 
maybe it will substantially decrease performance when doing directory lookups?