A Complete Guide to Inode – Counting Files In Linux Directory

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# Inode Count

Simply put, an inode is a data structure that Linux uses internally to hold details on filesystem objects. The total number of files and directories in a user account or on a disk is equal to the inode count. The inode count will increase by 1 for each file or directory.

To preserve the dependability and functionality of user accounts, Inode has set limits for shared hosting accounts. You must lower the count by deleting certain files and directories if the account’s maximum inode count is reached.

# Steps to determine the Inode count

Your hosting package type determines the method you should use to determine the inode count like :

1) If you have shared hosting or reseller hosting package, then you can use cPanel or the command line to determine the current inode usage for your account.

2) For all the other types of hosting packages (that include managed VPS, all unmanaged packages and managed Flex Dedicated server), you must have to use the command line to determine the current inode usage.

# Method 1: Using cPanel

Perform the following steps to determine the current inode count using cPanel :

1) Log in to cPanel

2) Go to Stats column present on the cPanel home screen, and locate the File Usage row. The first number represents the number of inodes your account is using, whereas the second number represents the maximum number of inodes that are allowed for your account. For example, the following image represents that an account is using 96,769 inodes and the maximum 300,000 inodes are allowed.

# Method 2: Using the command line

Perform the following steps to determine the current inode count for directories in your account using the command line :

1) Using SSH, log into your account.

2) Type the following command to ensure that you are in your home directory :

cd ~

3) Now, type the following command to determine the total inode count for your account :

find . | wc -l

4) To determine a breakdown of inode usage for all directories located in the current directory, type the following command :

find . -printf "%h\n" | cut -d/ -f-2 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

# Reduce the Inode count

If your account’s inode count is very high, you should strive to identify the reason as soon as you can in order to lower it to a manageable level. The following are a few typical reasons for high inode usage:

1) Cron jobs or other automated processes: Automated processes like cron jobs are able to create a large number of files very quickly. In such a case, either modify or disable the cron job, or you can delete the unwanted files.

2) E-mail messages: Old messages in the Trash and Sent folders of user’s mailboxes often accumulate. You can also download these messages to your local computer (in-case you want to save them) and then delete them on the server.