Configuring the User's Quotas

The next step is to configure the limits for each user. We can manipulate the hard and soft limits individually for every user. The timeout period can also be altered, but only on a per-filesystem basis.

We will start by assigning the same values, listed below, to each user. We have provided quite a large buffer between the soft and hard limits. This should allow the user to easily perform tasks such as transferring large files and creating large tar files. It also means that should our first guess at the user's limits be incorrect, the user will have time to inform us before the hard limit is met:

• Soft limit for file size: 300 MB (300,000 1 kB blocks)

• Hard limit for file size: 500 MB (500,000 1 kB blocks)

• Soft limit for number of files: 400

• Hard limit for number of files: 500

• Soft limit timeout period: 10 days

As usual, we'll apply the settings to the test account to be certain we are happy with them before we apply them to the genuine user accounts. (We set up the test account earlier in Chapter 3, “User Administration,” with a login name of testuser.)

Let's first alter the hard and soft limits using edquota. This will bring up the configuration data in our default editor (probably “vi”); we simply need to alter the values and save the file for the changes to take effect:

hydrogen# edquota testuser
fs /export/home blocks (soft = 300000, hard = 500000)
   inodes (soft = 400, hard = 500)
hydrogen#

Now, we'll alter the soft limit timeout period default to 10 days:

hydrogen# edquota –t
fs /export/home blocks time limit = 10 day, files time
   limit = 10 day
hydrogen#

Running quota will confirm that the user's soft and hard limits have been modified correctly:

hydrogen# quota –v testuser
Disk quotas for testuser (uid 500):
Filesystem  usage  quota  limit  timeleft  files  quota  limit    timeleft
/export/home    0 300000 500000                0    400    500
hydrogen#