[HDFS-173] Recursively deleting a directory with millions of files makes NameNode unresponsive for other commands until the deletion completes

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 0.21.0
• Component/s: namenode
• Hadoop Flags: Reviewed
• Assignee: Suresh Srinivas
• Reporter: Suresh Srinivas
• Created: 14/May/09 00:16
• Updated: 14/Aug/12 15:38
• Resolved: 04/Sep/09 00:22

Description

Delete a directory with millions of files. This could take several minutes (observed 12 mins for 9 million files). While the operation is in progress FSNamesystem lock is held and the requests from clients are not handled until deletion completes.

Issue Links

• breaks: HDFS-2815 Namenode is not coming out of safemode when we perform ( NN crash + restart ) . Also FSCK report shows blocks missed.
• is related to: HDFS-3791 Backport HDFS-173 to Branch-1 : Recursively deleting a directory with millions of files makes NameNode unresponsive for other commands until the deletion completes
• relates to: HDFS-2938 Recursive delete of a large directory makes namenode unresponsive