Overview

An inode is a data structure that keeps the information about a file on your hosting account. The number of inodes indicates the number of files and folders you have. This includes everything on your account, emails, files, folders, and anything you store on the server.

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• Shared Hosting Accounts
• Pro Hosting Accounts
• Linux VPS & Dedicated Servers
• How can I check an Inode count?
• How can I reduce my inode count?
• All accounts that have SSH access

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Shared Hosting Accounts

We only allow 50,000 inodes per cPanel account because that is where we see optimal server performance. We understand that not all of our customers can reduce their file count that far; for this reason, this is a "Soft limit," meaning that while the limit is reached, you will still be able to upload files. Once the account exceeds 200,000 files, it will violate our Terms of Service and can result in possible suspension.

Pro Hosting Accounts

With the upgrade to a Pro, Woo Pro, or WP Pro account, the inode limit is increased to 300,000.

Linux VPS & Dedicated Servers

While we do not enforce a specific inode limit on dedicated servers, VPS inodes will be limited to 1,000,000 files. Since you have root access and exclusive use of the server, you can allocate resources how you feel best, up to the physical limits of the server and file system. However, please note that an excessive number of inodes on any server does negatively affect performance.

How can I check an Inode count?

How to find your inodes will depend on your hosting type.

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• Shared Hosting Accounts
• Linux VPS & Dedicated Servers

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Shared Hosting Accounts

Accessing your Inode usage will differ depending on your account type.

Bluerock

Customers with a Bluerock interface can find their cPanel File Usage in the Statistics section of the Advanced tab from the side navigation to the left.

Legacy

Customers with a Legacy interface can find their cPanel Files and Folder counts in Hosting > cpanel > files and databases.

Linux VPS & Dedicated Servers

1. Log in to WHM.
2. Search for Terminal using the search boxes on the left-hand panel or at the top of the page.

   

3. Run the command df -i in the terminal.
4. The output will display the Inodes on your server.

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How can I reduce my inode count?

Remove any files or emails that you no longer need.

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All accounts that have SSH access

SSH is enabled by default in Shared, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting. You can check an account's inodes using SSH by using the following command:

quota -s <cpanel username>

Users with root access can use the above command to check the inodes of any account on their server, while all other users can only check the inodes of their username.

You can see the inode count for a specific folder by running the command:

echo "Detailed Inode usage for: $(pwd)" ; for d in `find -maxdepth 1 -type d |cut -d\/ -f2 |grep -xv . |sort`; do c=$(find $d |wc -l) ; printf "$c\t\t- $d\n" ; done ; printf "Total: \t\t$(find $(pwd) | wc -l)\n"

This may look messy. However, the output shows a nicely formatted list of detailed inode counts on your account:

TOS Inode violations can consist of the following (however not limited to):

• Delete and publish large numbers of files (10,000+) regularly
• If the cPanel exceeds 200,000 inodes, please refer to section B. Excessive Use of Resources or Network Abuse of our Acceptable Use Policy.