quotas

Quota specifications:

• number of inode (inode: pointer to file)
• number of block

Types:

• hard: block user when quota is reached
• soft: inform user that is about to reached the quota

install quotas

apt install quota

Enable quotas

 Check config supports quota

grep QUOTA /boot/config-*

=>

CONFIG_NFT_QUOTA=m
CONFIG_NETFILTER_XT_MATCH_QUOTA=m
CONFIG_XFS_QUOTA=y
CONFIG_QUOTA=y
CONFIG_QUOTA_NETLINK_INTERFACE=y
CONFIG_PRINT_QUOTA_WARNING=y
# CONFIG_QUOTA_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_QUOTA_TREE=m
CONFIG_QUOTACTL=y
CONFIG_QUOTACTL_COMPAT=y

Mount options

Check quota are enable in /etc/fstab at the 4th column: usrquota, grpquota option must be specified:

UUID=e248b430-aed3-4586-8a9f-2444515376e7 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro,acl,usrquota,grpquota 0 

Enable

quotacheck -ugm /

check quota files have been created:

ls /aquota.*
/aquota.group  /aquota.user

this will fix the following error: edquota: Cannot open quotafile //aquota.user: No such file or directory No filesystems with quota detected.

turn it on:

quotaon -v /

=>

/dev/sda1 [/]: group quotas turned on
/dev/sda1 [/]: user quotas turned on

Quota commands

check quotas:

quotacheck -a

display all quotas:

repquota -a 

edit quota:

** do not edit /etc/quotatab file directly but use:

edquota -u foo
edquota -g foogrp

edit grace period

grace period is the quantity of time that the system allows you to exceed the soft limit without blocking you. After that, user will be considered as he exceeded the hard limit.

edquota -t

Service

/etc/init.d/quota start
service quota start

Test it !

As root

Disk quotas for user foo (uid 1001):
  Filesystem                   blocks       soft       hard     inodes     soft     hard
  /dev/sda1                        16          0          0          4        5        6          

Here, our foo user has: * currently consumed 4 inodes on the FS * a quota soft limit set to 5 inodes * a quota hard limit set to 6 inodes

As final user

Reach the soft limit

foo@debian:~$ touch file 
foo@debian:~$ touch file 2
sda1: warning, user file quota exceeded.

Reach the hard limit

foo@debian:~$ touch file 3
sda1: write failed, user file limit reached.
touch: cannot touch '3': Disk quota exceeded

Report

root@debian:~# repquota /

=>

*** Report for user quotas on device /dev/sda1
Block grace time: 7days; Inode grace time: 7days
                        Block limits                File limits
User            used    soft    hard  grace    used  soft  hard  grace
----------------------------------------------------------------------
root      -- 3645544       0       0         113922     0     0       
man       --    1496       0       0            157     0     0       
lp        --   11980       0       0              1     0     0       
_apt      --      12       0       0              3     0     0       
systemd-timesync --       4       0       0              2     0     0       
avahi-autoipd --       4       0       0              1     0     0       
speech-dispatcher --       4       0       0              1     0     0       
colord    --       8       0       0              2     0     0       
lightdm   --      32       0       0              8     0     0       
ben       --   56020       0       0           1295     0     0       
foo       -+      16       0       0              6     5     6  6days

Resources

• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-filesystem-quotas-on-debian-10