Disk Quotas - User Disk Space Limits Guide

Enable and manage user/group quotas on filesystems.

# Install quota tools
sudo apt install quota

# Enable quotas on filesystem
# Add to /etc/fstab:
# /dev/sdb1 /home ext4 defaults,usrquota,grpquota 0 2

# Remount with quotas
sudo mount -o remount /home

# Initialize quota database
sudo quotacheck -cug /home
sudo quotacheck -avug

# Enable quotas
sudo quotaon -av

# Check user quota
quota -u john
quota -g developers

# Set quota for user
sudo setquota -u john 500M 1G 0 0 /home

# Edit quota interactively
sudo edquota john

# Copy quota to multiple users
sudo edquota -p john user1 user2 user3

# Report quota usage
repquota /home
repquota -a

# Disable quotas
sudo quotaoff -a

Advanced quota features for XFS filesystems.

# Enable quotas on XFS
# Add to /etc/fstab:
# /dev/sdb1 /data xfs defaults,usrquota,grpquota,prjquota 0 2

# Mount with quotas
sudo mount -o remount /data

# Interactive XFS quota management
sudo xfs_quota -x

# Common xfs_quota commands:
# report -h /data          # Human-readable report
# limit bsoft=1g bhard=2g john /data
# limit -g bsoft=10g bhard=15g developers /data
# limit -p bsoft=5g bhard=7g project1 /data

# Set project quota
echo 123:/data/webapp >> /etc/projects
echo webapp:123 >> /etc/projid
sudo xfs_quota -x -c "project -s webapp" /data
sudo xfs_quota -x -c "limit -p bsoft=5g bhard=7g webapp" /data

# Check project usage
sudo xfs_quota -x -c "report -h -p" /data

# Set grace periods
sudo xfs_quota -x -c "timer -g -b 7days" /data
sudo xfs_quota -x -c "timer -u -b 7days" /data

# Export/import quota settings
sudo xfs_quota -x -c "report -p -n" /data > quotas.txt

Monitor quota usage and generate reports.

# Comprehensive quota report
repquota -aug

# Human-readable report
repquota -augsi

# Report for specific filesystem
repquota -s /home

# Check quota exceeded users
repquota -a | grep +

# Set up automatic quota warnings
sudo warnquota

# Configure warnquota
# Edit /etc/warnquota.conf
#
# MAIL_CMD = /usr/bin/mail
# FROM = quota-manager@company.com
# SUBJECT = Disk Quota Warning
# MESSAGE = Your disk quota has exceeded...

# Test warnquota
sudo warnquota -u john

# Daily quota report script
#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d)
repquota -augsi > /var/log/quotas/quotas_$DATE.log

# Find large quota users
repquota -a | awk '$3 > 1000000 {print $1, $2, $3}' | sort -k3 -nr

# Monitor with watch
watch -n 60 'repquota -s /home'

# Send quota alerts via Slack/Email
# Integrate with monitoring systems

Manage container storage with Docker quotas.

# Set container storage limit
docker run -it --storage-opt size=10G ubuntu

# Docker daemon storage options
# /etc/docker/daemon.json
{
  "storage-driver": "devicemapper",
  "storage-opts": [
    "dm.basesize=10G",
    "dm.fs=ext4",
    "dm.thinpooldev=/dev/mapper/docker-thinpool"
  ]
}

# Check container storage usage
docker system df
docker ps -s

# Limit container writable layer
docker run -it --storage-opt size=120G ubuntu

# Compose file with storage limits
# docker-compose.yml
version: '3.8'
services:
  app:
    image: ubuntu
    storage_opt:
      size: 10G

# Clean up unused containers and images
docker system prune -a -f

# Monitor container storage growth
docker stats --format "table {{.Name}}\t{{.MemUsage}}\t{{.NetIO}}\t{{.BlockIO}}"

# Set overlay2 storage driver limits
# /etc/docker/daemon.json
{
  "storage-driver": "overlay2",
  "storage-opts": [
    "overlay2.size=10G"
  ]
}

Implement storage quotas in Kubernetes clusters.

# Namespace storage quota
apiVersion: v1
kind: ResourceQuota
metadata:
  name: storage-quota
  namespace: production
spec:
  hard:
    requests.storage: "100Gi"
    persistentvolumeclaims: "10"
    requests.ephemeral-storage: "10Gi"
    limits.ephemeral-storage: "20Gi"

# Pod storage limits
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: storage-demo
spec:
  containers:
  - name: app
    image: nginx
    resources:
      limits:
        ephemeral-storage: "2Gi"
      requests:
        ephemeral-storage: "1Gi"

# Check quota usage
kubectl describe resourcequota storage-quota -n production

# PVC quota example
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: pvc-quota
spec:
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 5Gi

# StorageClass with quota enforcement
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
  name: quota-sc
provisioner: kubernetes.io/no-provisioner
parameters:
  storage: "5Gi"

# Monitor storage usage
kubectl top pods --containers
kubectl describe nodes | grep -A10 "Allocated resources"

# Clean up unused PVCs
kubectl get pvc --all-namespaces | grep Released | awk '{print $2 " -n " $1}' | xargs -n3 kubectl delete pvc

Automate quota management and monitoring.

# Automated quota setup script
#!/bin/bash
MOUNT_POINT="/home"
QUOTA_DB="/aquota.user"

# Initialize if not exists
if [ ! -f $MOUNT_POINT$QUOTA_DB ]; then
    quotacheck -cug $MOUNT_POINT
    quotaon $MOUNT_POINT
fi

# Set default quotas for new users
#!/bin/bash
DEFAULT_SOFT="500M"
DEFAULT_HARD="1G"

for user in $(ls /home); do
    if [ -d "/home/$user" ]; then
        setquota -u $user $DEFAULT_SOFT $DEFAULT_HARD 0 0 /home
    fi
done

# Quota alert script
#!/bin/bash
THRESHOLD=90
ALERT_EMAIL="admin@company.com"

repquota -a | awk -v threshold=$THRESHOLD '
$1 ~ /^[a-z]/ && $3 > 0 {
    usage = ($2 / $3) * 100
    if (usage > threshold) {
        print "ALERT: User " $1 " quota usage: " usage "%"
    }
}' | mail -s "Quota Alert" $ALERT_EMAIL

# Prometheus quota monitoring
# node_exporter textfile collector
#!/bin/bash
echo "quota_usage{user=\"john\",mount=\"/home\"} 75" > /var/lib/node_exporter/quota.prom
echo "quota_usage{user=\"jane\",mount=\"/home\"} 42" >> /var/lib/node_exporter/quota.prom

# Ansible quota management
- name: Set user quotas
  community.general.quota:
    user: "{{ item.user }}"
    type: user
    mountpoint: /home
    block_soft: "{{ item.soft }}"
    block_hard: "{{ item.hard }}"
  loop:
    - { user: 'john', soft: '500M', hard: '1G' }
    - { user: 'jane', soft: '1G', hard: '2G' }