[TriLUG] Hard Disk Quota

[Aaron Joyner]

Randall Barlow wrote:

> Hi,
>
>    I've only been using Linux as a PC, but now it is time for me to 
> admin one a bit.  What is the recommended way to enforce user disk 
> quota under Linux?
>
> Randy

`man quota`, or if you don't have the quota tools installed, something 
like `yum install quota` or `apt-get install quota`.  The various modern 
linux filesystems all support quotas natively, and there is much 
information to be found by googling linux quota or edquota.  The 10,000 
foot view is that there are soft quotas and hard quotas.  Soft quotas 
can be overstepped for a period of time known as the grace period.  
After that period of time has elapsed and the user hasn't gone back 
below the soft quota, the user is denied further disk space until he 
drops below the soft quota again.  The hard quota is a "simple" quota, 
meaning the user can not exceed this value with out exception.  You can 
quota both on size, and on inodes.  This allows you to limit both the 
amount of disk space the user can consume with large files, and the 
amount of inodes the user can consume by creating thousands of small 
files (or directories) that each require the allocation of an inode.

Enjoy the world of linux quotas,
Aaron S. Joyner