Examples of quota configuration

These examples help you understand how to configure quotas and read quota reports.

For the following examples, assume that you have a storage system that includes an SVM, vs1, with one volume, vol1. To start setting up quotas, you create a new quota policy for the SVM with the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota policy create -vserver vs1 -policy-name quota_policy_vs1_1

Since the quota policy is new, you assign it to the SVM by entering the following command:

cluster1::>vserver modify -vserver vs1 -quota-policy quota_policy_vs1_1

Example 1: Default user quota

You decide to impose a hard limit of 50 MB for each user in vol1 by entering the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota policy rule create -vserver vs1 -policy-name quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type user -target "" -disk-limit 50MB -qtree ""

To activate the new rule, you initialize quotas on the volume by entering the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota on -vserver vs1 -volume vol1 -foreground

To view the quota report, you enter the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota report

The resulting quota report is similar to the following report:

Vserver: vs1
                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
  vol1               user    *           0B   50MB       0       -   *
  vol1               user    jsmith    49MB   50MB      37       -   *
  vol1               user    root        0B      -       1       -

The first line shows the default user quota that you created, including the disk limit. Like all default quotas, this default user quota does not display information about disk or file usage. In addition to the quota that was created, two other quotas appear—one quota for each user that currently owns files on vol1. These additional quotas are user quotas that were derived automatically from the default user quota. The derived user quota for the user jsmith has the same 50-MB disk limit as the default user quota. The derived user quota for the root user is a tracking quota (without limits).

If any user on the system (other than the root user) tries to perform an action that would use more than 50 MB in vol1 (for example, writing to a file from an editor), the action fails.

Example 2: Explicit user quota overriding a default user quota

If you need to provide more space in volume vol1 to the user jsmith, then you enter the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota policy rule create -vserver vs1 -policy-name quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type user -target jsmith -disk-limit 80MB -qtree ""

This is an explicit user quota, because the user is explicitly listed as the target of the quota rule.

This is a change to an existing quota limit, because it changes the disk limit of the derived user quota for the user jsmith on the volume. Therefore, you do not need to reinitialize quotas on the volume to activate the change. You can resize quotas by entering the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota resize -vserver vs1 -volume vol1 -foreground

Quotas remain in effect while you resize, and the resizing process is short.

The resulting quota report is similar to the following report:

cluster1::> volume quota report
  Vserver: vs1
                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
  vol1               user    *           0B   50MB       0       -   *
  vol1               user    jsmith    50MB   80MB      37       -   jsmith
  vol1               user    root        0B      -       1       -
  3 entries were displayed.

The second line now shows a Disk Limit of 80 MB and a Quota Specifier of jsmith.

Therefore, jsmith can use up to 80 MB of space on vol1, even though all other users are still limited to 50 MB.

Example 3: Thresholds

Suppose you want to receive a notification when users reach within 5 MB of their disk limits. To create a threshold of 45 MB for all users, and a threshold of 75 MB for jsmith, you change the existing quota rules by entering the following commands:

cluster1::>volume quota policy rule modify -vserver vs1 -policy quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type user -target "" -qtree "" -threshold 45MB
cluster1::>volume quota policy rule modify -vserver vs1 -policy quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type user -target jsmith -qtree "" -threshold 75MB

Since the sizes of the existing rules are changed, you resize quotas on the volume in order to activate the changes. You wait until the resize process is finished.

To see the quota report with thresholds, you add the -thresholds parameter to the volume quota report command:

cluster1::>volume quota report -thresholds
  Vserver: vs1
                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit   Used    Limit  Quota
                                            (Thold)                 Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------  ---------
  vol1               user    *           0B   50MB       0       -  *
                                             (45MB)
  vol1               user    jsmith    59MB   80MB      55       -  jsmith
                                             (75MB)
  vol1               user    root        0B      -       1       -
                                             ( -)
  3 entries were displayed.

The thresholds appear in parentheses in the Disk Limit column.

Example 4: Quotas on qtrees

Suppose you need to partition some space for two projects. You can create two qtrees, named proj1 and proj2, to accommodate those projects within vol1.

Currently, users can use as much space in a qtree as they are allotted for the entire volume (provided they did not exceed the limit for the volume by using space in the root or another qtree). In addition, each of the qtrees can grow to consume the entire volume. If you want to ensure that neither qtree grows beyond 20 GB, you can create default tree quota on the volume by entering the following command:

cluster1:>>volume quota policy rule create -vserver vs1 -policy-name quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type tree -target "" -disk-limit 20GB

Note that the correct type is tree, not qtree.

Because this is a new quota, you cannot activate it by resizing. You reinitialize quotas on the volume by entering the following commands:

cluster1:>>volume quota off -vserver vs1 -volume vol1
cluster1:>>volume quota on -vserver vs1 -volume vol1 -foreground

Note: You must ensure that you wait for about five minutes before reactivating the quotas on each affected volume, as attempting to activate them almost immediately after running the volume quota off command might result in errors.

Alternatively, you can run the commands to re-initialize the quotas for a volume from the node that contains the particular volume.

Quotas are not enforced during the reinitialization process, which takes longer than the resizing process.

When you display a quota report, it has several new lines: some lines are for tree quotas and some lines are for derived user quotas.

The following new lines are for the tree quotas:

                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
...
  vol1               tree    *           0B   20GB       0       -   *
  vol1     proj1     tree    1           0B   20GB       1       -   proj1
  vol1     proj2     tree    2           0B   20GB       1       -   proj2
...

The default tree quota that you created appears in the first new line, which has an asterisk (*) in the ID column. In response to the default tree quota on a volume, ONTAP automatically creates derived tree quotas for each qtree in the volume. These are shown in the lines where proj1 and proj2 appear in the Tree column.

The following new lines are for derived user quotas:

                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
...
  vol1     proj1     user    *           0B   50MB       0       -
  vol1     proj1     user    root        0B      -       1       -
  vol1     proj2     user    *           0B   50MB       0       -
  vol1     proj2     user    root        0B      -       1       -
...

Default user quotas on a volume are automatically inherited for all qtrees contained by that volume, if quotas are enabled for qtrees. When you added the first qtree quota, you enabled quotas on qtrees. Therefore, derived default user quotas were created for each qtree. These are shown in the lines where ID is asterisk (*).

Because the root user is the owner of a file, when default user quotas were created for each of the qtrees, special tracking quotas were also created for the root user on each of the qtrees. These are shown in the lines where ID is root.

Example 5: User quota on a qtree

You decide to limit users to less space in the proj1 qtree than they get in the volume as a whole. You want to keep them from using any more than 10 MB in the proj1 qtree. Therefore, you create a default user quota for the qtree by entering the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota policy rule create -vserver vs1 -policy-name quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type user -target "" -disk-limit 10MB -qtree proj1

This is a change to an existing quota, because it changes the default user quota for the proj1 qtree that was derived from the default user quota on the volume. Therefore, you activate the change by resizing quotas. When the resize process is complete, you can view the quota report.

The following new line appears in the quota report showing the new explicit user quota for the qtree:

                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
  vol1     proj1     user    *           0B   10MB       0       -   *

However, the user jsmith is being prevented from writing more data to the proj1 qtree because the quota you created to override the default user quota (to provide more space) was on the volume. As you have added a default user quota on the proj1 qtree, that quota is being applied and limiting all the users' space in that qtree, including jsmith. To provide more space to the user jsmith, you add an explicit user quota rule for the qtree with an 80 MB disk limit to override the default user quota rule for the qtree by entering the following command:

cluster1::>volume quota policy rule create -vserver vs1 -policy-name quota_policy_vs1_1 -volume vol1 -type user -target jsmith -disk-limit 80MB -qtree proj1

Since this is an explicit quota for which a default quota already existed, you activate the change by resizing quotas. When the resize process is complete, you display a quota report.

The following new line appears in the quota report:

                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
  vol1     proj1     user    jsmith    61MB   80MB      57       -   jsmith

The final quota report is similar to the following report:

cluster1::>volume quota report
  Vserver: vs1
                                      ----Disk----  ----Files-----   Quota
  Volume   Tree      Type    ID        Used  Limit    Used   Limit   Specifier
  -------  --------  ------  -------  -----  -----  ------  ------   ---------
  vol1               tree    *           0B   20GB       0       -   *
  vol1               user    *           0B   50MB       0       -   *
  vol1               user    jsmith    70MB   80MB      65       -   jsmith
  vol1     proj1     tree    1           0B   20GB       1       -   proj1
  vol1     proj1     user    *           0B   10MB       0       -   *
  vol1     proj1     user    root        0B      -       1       -
  vol1     proj2     tree    2           0B   20GB       1       -   proj2
  vol1     proj2     user    *           0B   50MB       0       -
  vol1     proj2     user    root        0B      -       1       -
  vol1               user    root        0B      -       3       -
  vol1     proj1     user    jsmith    61MB   80MB      57       -   jsmith
  11 entries were displayed.

The user jsmith is required to meet the following quota limits to write to a file in proj1:

The tree quota for the proj1 qtree.
The user quota on the proj1 qtree.
The user quota on the volume.