Using Quotas

Using quotas enable system administrators to control the size of UFS file systems by limiting the amount of disk space and the number of inodes (which roughly corresponds to the number of files) that individual users can acquire. For this reason, quotas are especially useful on the file systems where user home directories reside.

Once they are in place, quotas can be changed to adjust the amount of disk space or number of inodes that users can consume. Additionally, quotas can be added or removed as system needs change. See "Changing and Removing Quotas" for instructions on changing quotas or the amount of time that quotas can be exceeded, disabling individual quotas, or removing quotas from file systems.

In addition, quota status can be monitored. Quota commands enable administrators to display information about quotas on a file system, or search for users who have exceeded their quotas. For procedures that describe how to use these commands, see "Checking Quotas".

Soft Limits and Hard Limits

You can set both soft and hard limits. The system will not allow a user to exceed his or her hard limit. However, a system administrator may set a soft limit (sometimes referred to as a quota) which can be temporarily exceeded by the user. The soft limit must be less than the hard limit.

Once the user exceeds the soft limit, a timer begins. While the timer is ticking, the user is allowed to operate above the soft limit but cannot exceed the hard limit. Once the user goes below the soft limit, the timer gets reset. However, if the user's usage remains above the soft limit when the timer expires, the soft limit is enforced as a hard limit. By default, the soft limit timer is seven days.

The value of the timer is shown by the timeleft field in the repquota and quota commands.

For example, let's say a user has a soft limit of 10,000 blocks and a hard limit of 12,000 blocks. If the user's block usage exceeds 10,000 blocks and the timer is also exceeded (more than seven days), the user will not be able to allocate more disk blocks on that file system until his or her usage drops below the soft limit.

Difference Between Disk Block and File Limits

There are two resources that a file system provides to the user: blocks (for data) and inodes (for files). Each file consumes one inode. File data is stored in data blocks (usually made of up 1 kilobyte blocks.)

Assuming there are no directories, it is possible for a user to exceed his or her inode quota without using any blocks by creating all empty files. It is also possible for a user to use only one inode yet exceed his or her block quota by simply creating one file large enough to consume all the data blocks in the user's quota.