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# Quota mini-HOWTO

## Ralf van Dooren `r.vdooren@snow.nl`

v0.5, 2003-08-09

Preamble: This document is written by Ralf van Dooren (r.vdooren@snow.nl). Original text and setup of this document is copyleft-ed by Albert M.C. Tam, many thanks to him for this initial mini-HOWTO. This document is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Permission to use, copy, distribute this document for non-commercial purposes is hereby granted, provided that the author's / editor's name and this notice appear in all copies and/or supporting documents; that this document is not modified. This document is distributed in hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, either expressed or implied. While every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information documented herein, the author / editor / maintainer assumes NO RESPONSIBILITY for errors, or for damages results for the use of the information documented herein.

This document describes how to enable file system quota on a Linux host, assigning quota for users and groups, as well as the usage of miscellaneous quota commands. It is intended for users running kernel 2.x (recently tested on kernel 2.4.21).

Feel free to send feedbacks or comments to r.vdooren@snow.nl if you find an error, or if any information is missing. I appreciate it.

## 1. What is quota?

- 1.1 What is quota for?
- 1.2 Current Status of Quota on Linux

## 2. Requirements for quota

- 2.1 Kernel
- 2.2 Quota software

## 3. Quota setup: installation and configuration

- 3.1 Patch the kernel
- 3.2 Reconfigure your kernel
- 3.3 Compile and install the quota softwares
- 3.4 Modify your system init script to check quota and turn quota on at boot
- 3.5 Modify /etc/fstab
- 3.6 Activate the quota system
- 3.7 Add quotacheck to crontab

## 4. Quota setup: tools

- 4.1 Assigning quota for a particular user
- 4.2 Assigning quota for a particular group
- 4.3 Assigning quota for a bunch of users with the same value
- 4.4 Soft Limit
- 4.5 Hard Limit
- 4.6 Grace Period

## 5. Miscellaneous Quota Commands

- 5.1 Quotacheck
- 5.2 Repquota
- 5.3 Quotaon and Quotaoff

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