filesystem-quota · shipping · also disk quota

Filesystem quota

A filesystem quota accounts for and can limit storage usage by a user, group or project within a filesystem.

Related Observatory article: Filesystem quota on hesela.com

Space and inode limits are distinct. With enforcement active, a soft limit permits an excess for a grace period, subject to the hard limit and other constraints. After expiry, further allocation of that resource is blocked until usage falls below the soft limit or policy changes. Hard-limit privilege exceptions depend on the implementation. [2] [1]

XFS separates quota accounting from enforcement, so recorded usage alone does not show that allocation limits are active. [4] Linux write() reports exhausted block quota as EDQUOT, separately from ENOSPC for insufficient data space. [3]

Relations

related

statvfs, Inode, File preallocation, Thin provisioning

Limitations

• An allocation ceiling is not a reservation of capacity in the filesystem or its backing thin pool. [5]

Citations

1. Linux man-pages: quotactl(2), user, group and project limits (accessed 2026-10-21)
2. Linux kernel: quota subsystem, space/inode limits and grace periods (accessed 2026-10-21)
3. Linux man-pages: write(2), EDQUOT, ENOSPC and partial writes (accessed 2026-10-21)
4. XFS: xfs_quota(8), accounting versus enforcement (accessed 2026-10-21)
5. Hesela: filesystem quotas and capacity headroom (accessed 2026-10-21)

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