Commands Reference, Volume 2

edquota Command

Purpose

Edits user and group quotas.

Syntax

To Edit User Quotas

edquota [ -u ] [ -p Proto-UserName ] UserName ...

To Edit Group Quotas

edquota [ -g [ -p Proto-GroupName ] GroupName ... ]

To Edit Change User or Group Grace Period

edquota -t [ -u | -g ]

Description

The edquota command creates and edits quotas. It creates a temporary file that contains each user's and group's current disk quotas. It determines the list of file systems with established quotas from the /etc/filesystems file. The edquota command also invokes the vi editor (or the editor specified by the EDITOR environment variable) on the temporary file so that quotas can be added and modified.

Note

If you specify an editor in the EDITOR environment variable, you must specify the full pathname of the editor.

Quotas are maintained separately for each file system. When you create or edit a quota for a user or a group, the quota applies to a specific file system. A quota must be set in each file system where you want to use quotas.

By default, or when used with the -u flag, the edquota command edits the quotas of one or more users specified by the UserName parameter on the command line. When used with the -g flag, the edquota command edits the quotas of one or more groups specified by the GroupName parameter. The -p flag identifies a prototypical user (UserName) or a prototypical group (Proto-GroupName) and duplicates these quotas for a specified user or group.

A user can exceed established soft limits for a default grace period of 1 week. Upon expiration of the grace period, the soft limit is enforced as a hard limit. The grace period can be specified in days, hours, minutes, or seconds. A value of 0 indicates that the default grace period is imposed; a value of 1 second indicates that no grace period is granted. The -t flag changes the grace period.

Fields displayed in the temporary file are:

Blocks in use	The current number of 1KB file system blocks used by this user or group.
Inodes in use	The current number of files used by this user or group.
Block soft limit	The number of 1KB blocks the user or group will be allowed to use during normal operations.
Block hard limit	The total amount of 1KB blocks the user or group will be allowed to use, including temporary storage during a quota grace period.
Inode soft limit	The number of files the user or group will be allowed to create during normal operations.
Inode hard limit	The total number of files the user or group will be allowed to create, including temporary files created during a quota grace period.

Note

A hard limit with a value of 1 indicates that no allocations are permitted. A soft limit with a value of 1, in conjunction with a hard limit with a value of 0, indicates that allocations are permitted only on a temporary basis.

When the editor is exited, the edquota command reads the temporary file and modifies the binary quota files to reflect any changes.

Hard or soft limits can only be specified in whole 1KB block amounts.

Flags

-g	Edits the quotas of one or more specified groups.
-p	When invoked with the -u flag, duplicates the quotas established for a prototypical user for each specified user. When invoked with the -g flag, the -p flag duplicates the quotas established for a prototypical group for each listed group.
-t	Changes the grace period during which quotas can be exceeded before a soft limit is imposed as a hard limit. The default value of the grace period is 1 week. When invoked with the -u flag, the grace period is set for all file systems with user quotas specified in the /etc/filesystems file. When invoked with the -g flag, the grace period is set for all file systems with group quotas specified in the /etc/filesystems file. Note After changing a grace period using the edquota command, the new grace period value will not go into effect until the quota.user and quota.group files are refreshed by running the quotaoff command followed by the quotaon command. Users who have already reached their old grace period must reduce their file system usage to a level below their soft limits in order to use the new grace period. In the future, when these users exceed their soft limits, the new grace period will be in effect.
-u	Edits the quotas of one or more users.

Note

If the user or group names contains all numbers then it will be treated as a user or group ID. Quotas will then be edited for the ID rather than the name.

Security

Access Control:

Only the root user can execute this command.

Examples

To create quotas for user sharl, using the quotas established for user davec as a prototype, enter:

edquota -u -p davec sharl

Files

quota.user	Specifies user quotas.
quota.group	Specifies group quotas.
/etc/filesystems	Contains file system names and locations.

Related Information

The quota command, quotacheck command quotaon and quotaoff command, repquota command.

The Disk Quota System Overview introduces the disk quota system and Setting Up the Disk Quota System describes how to establish disk quotas. Both are inAIX 5L Version 5.2 Security Guide.