max sizes for files and file systems

[Derek Vadala]

I've been trying to do some research on the file size and filesystem size
limitations under Linux for stable releases since 2.0. 

It's clear that under 2.4, the kernel imposes a limit of 2TB as the
maximum file size and that some portion of the kernels before 2.4 had a
limit of 2GB.

However, it's not clear to me when the file size limit was increased, or
what the maximum file system sizes under 2.0, 2.2 and 2.4 are. I realize
that both of these values are also contingent on the filesystem used, but
I'm wondering about what limits the kernel itself imposes. 

I'm also a bit unclear as to where the 2GB limit in kernels < 2.4 comes
from. It appears to be a kernel imposed limit, but there also seems to be
a lot conflicting information out there, blaming the problem on
EXT2. However, from what I can tell, 2.0.39, 2.2.19 and 2.4.5 all use the
same version (0.5b-95/08/09) of ext2-- either that or EXT2FS_VERSION and
EXT2FS_DATE in .../include/linux/ext2_fs.h simply haven't been updated.

Any clarification would be appreciated.

---
Derek Vadala, [e-mail], http://www.cynicism.com/~derek