failed to parse storage.bytestotal size in kilobytes

Error message

failed to parse storage.bytestotal size in kilobytes

What it means

After extracting columns, diskInfo parses field[1] (size in 1K blocks) with strconv.ParseUint. If the column is not a plain unsigned decimal, parsing fails and this error is returned before converting to bytes.

Source

Thrown at client/fingerprint/storage_unix.go:54

		return "", 0, fmt.Errorf("failed to determine mount point for %s", absPath)
	}
	// Output looks something like:
	//	Filesystem 1024-blocks      Used Available Capacity   iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on
	//	/dev/disk1   487385240 423722532  63406708    87% 105994631 15851677   87%   /
	//	[0] volume [1] capacity [2] SKIP  [3] free
	lines := strings.Split(string(mountOutput), "\n")
	if len(lines) < 2 {
		return "", 0, fmt.Errorf("failed to parse `df` output; expected at least 2 lines")
	}
	fields := strings.Fields(lines[1])
	if len(fields) < 4 {
		return "", 0, fmt.Errorf("failed to parse `df` output; expected at least 4 columns")
	}
	volume = fields[0]

	total, err = strconv.ParseUint(fields[1], 10, 64)
	if err != nil {
		return "", 0, fmt.Errorf("failed to parse storage.bytestotal size in kilobytes")
	}
	// convert to bytes
	total *= 1024

	return volume, total, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

Inspect raw `df -k <path>` output and confirm the second column is a plain integer.
Remove any df wrapper script or ensure it emits standard output.
Set LC_ALL=C to avoid locale separators in numbers.
Configure DiskTotalMB to bypass df-based detection entirely.

Example fix

// before
df() { /bin/df -h "$@"; }  # -h prints '1.5T' style sizes
// after
# remove wrapper; code calls `df -k` expecting raw kilobyte integers

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

out, _ := exec.Command("df", "-kP", path).Output()
lines := strings.Split(string(out), "\n")
if len(lines) < 2 { return fmt.Errorf("no df data row") }
fields := strings.Fields(lines[1])
if len(fields) < 4 { return fmt.Errorf("df columns missing") }
if _, err := strconv.ParseUint(fields[1], 10, 64); err != nil {
	return fmt.Errorf("df size column %q not an integer; remove df wrappers or set DiskTotalMB", fields[1])
}

Try / catch

if err := fp.Fingerprint(req); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to parse storage.bytestotal") {
		log.Printf("df size column unparseable: %v", err)
		return nil
	}
	return err
}

Prevention

Remove df wrapper scripts that emit human-readable sizes (-h).
Set LC_ALL=C to prevent locale formatting of numbers.
Verify df's 1024-blocks column is a plain integer on target hosts.
Use DiskTotalMB config override to bypass parsing.

When it happens

Trigger: df data row's 1024-blocks column contains non-numeric text — corrupt/truncated df output, a df replacement printing units (e.g. '1.5T') or placeholder values ('-').

Common situations: Wrapper scripts around df; filesystems reporting '-' for size; output mangled by locale thousands separators.

Understand the failure class

Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/146a34cdff7341e6. Report an issue: GitHub.