Linux Intermediate

What is Disk Quota?

A system for limiting the amount of disk space or number of files that individual users or groups can consume on a filesystem.

Disk quotas prevent individual users from consuming excessive storage on shared systems. Two types exist: block quotas (limit space in KB/MB/GB) and inode quotas (limit number of files). Each can have a soft limit (warning threshold with a grace period) and hard limit (absolute maximum). Setup involves enabling quotas in /etc/fstab, creating quota database files, and configuring limits with edquota. The repquota command generates usage reports. XFS filesystems have built-in quota support through xfs_quota. Quotas are essential for multi-user servers, hosting environments, and email servers.

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