Number of Loop Devices

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In Debian, the default number of loop devices (/dev/loop#) is limited to 8.  i.e. you'll see /dev/loop0 through /dev/loop7, and no more, if you "ls /dev |grep loop".

You might need more, for any number of reasons.  Loop devices are commonly used for mounting files as devices, e.g. mounting disk images, supporting virtualization software or encrypted files as filesystems.

To increase the number of loop devices, if your loop device support is in a module (not compiled into the kernel), you can add:

loop max_loop=64

to /etc/modules

and restart.

If your kernel is providing your loop devices, add

max_loop=64

to the end of your kernel line, in grub.  (/boot/grub/menu.lst for me).

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