topic Re: WARNING: Circular directory structure in ONTAP Discussions

WARNING: Circular directory structure

netappwala — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 22:29:28 GMT

Hi,

I have exported a volume to Linux client. Problem is that when they run "du" command on that mount point its not showing the size and it is throwing below warning messages. They can read the data without any prob.

[root@sbsaplxwmq01p home]# du -sh epub
du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/nightly.0'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/hourly.0'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/hourly.1'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/hourly.2'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/hourly.3'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/nightly.1'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/hourly.4'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/hourly.5'

du: WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system.
NOTIFY YOUR SYSTEM MANAGER.
The following directory is part of the cycle:
`epub/.snapshot/ndvm_final_1421953801'

Has anyone faced this issue?

Thanks,

Charan

Re: WARNING: Circular directory structure

asulliva — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 17:54:39 GMT

Either turn off the .snapshot directory on the NetApp, or use the "--exclude" option of du...

du -sh --exclude .snapshot epub

Andrew

Re: WARNING: Circular directory structure

netappwala — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:25:09 GMT

cant't turn off the .snapshot directory as clients need it.

when they run du on .snapshot directory alone it is showing the size without giving any warning but the result is odd. total size of the volume what I have exported is 500g; but client can see the .snpshot directory's size alone 850g in du's output. As I posted above du is not showing the size of actualy mount point. And "df" command is showing right results.

Thanks,

Charan

Re: WARNING: Circular directory structure

parisi — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 15:29:44 GMT

This is likely a client side issue.

http://mysupport.netapp.com/NOW/cgi-bin/bol?Type=Detail&Display=808812

No public report yet, but there were 2 bugzillas filed.

1225090 for RHEL 7.1

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1225090

1223978 for RHEL 6.6

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1223978

(both need credentials to see)

Re: WARNING: Circular directory structure

netappwala — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 13:31:17 GMT

Thanks Parisi