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ECN Accounts: Home Directory Quota

Whenever you login, by default, the quota of your home directory is checked, to verify that you are safely under quota.

If a message similar to this appears during login:

  quota_ufs: Warning: over disk limit (pid 12345, uid 6789, inum 241756, fs /export/home/b)

it indicates that your home directory has reached its limit of disk space. You can check your own quota by typing:

	/usr/sbin/quota -v

at your prompt. That will return something like:

 

Disk quotas for jruser (uid 6789):
Filesystem usage quota limit timeleft files quota limit timeleft

/export/home/b

775 775 1500 7.0 days 162 0 0

Here is what some of the columns mean:

 

usage
how much space you are using in Kilobytes (Kb)
quota
"soft quota"; how much disk space you are allotted
limit
"hard quota"; how much disk space you CANNOT exceed
timeleft
how much time you have left to get under your quota (soft quota)
files
Displays the number of inodes in use by you on that filesystem. Loosely speaking, that's the number of files/directories you own.

Upon login, or when using the quota command, a warning message is displayed when you have reached your "soft" quota. At this point, any unnecessary files should be removed, or steps should be taken to compress data, in order to fall beneath the "soft" quota limit again. If you do not do so within the "timeleft", your "soft" quota becomes your "hard" quota, prohibiting you from creating anything else.

Do NOT ignore the warning message. If you do, you risk not being able to save important information or files.

 

If You Are Over Your Quota

There are a number of ways to make sure that you stay safely below your quota.

Delete unnecessary files

When you get a warning, the first thing you should do is look around your directories for unneeded files. Delete the files using the rm command:

 

	rm filename

You can find out the size of each file using the ls -s command. The following files are usually expendable:

 

file~
Any file that ends in a tilde ('~') is usually an older version of the file. Usually Emacs or ez creates these.
#file
Any file that begins with a ('#'). These are files that are marked for deletion, and should be removed by the system automatically under NFS.
core
This file may have been created when you were running a program that failed with the message "Segmentation fault (core dumped)" or "Bus Error (core dumped)". Core files are useful for finding out what caused the program to fail, but little else. They can be safely deleted.
file.dvi, file.log, file.aux
These files are generated by LaTeX; if you have the .tex file you can always recreate the .dvi file by latex'ing it again.
file.o
These are object files that you get when compiling C or Fortran programs. You can regenerate them by recompiling your programs, and so they can be safely deleted.
.backup
These files are generated by FrameMaker. This is the equivalent of a ~ file that Emacs or ez might create. It is the last version of the file you were working on, but not the most current.

Once you have removed your unnecessary files, you can use the quota -v command again to see if you are still over your quota. It may take up to 15 minutes before the removed files are not counted against your quota.

Other files that you will not likely need are those ending with .lpt, or Postscript files generated by dvips, EZ, or FrameMaker.

Files ending in .PS may not have necessarily been generated by one of the above named programs. Many other programs create .PS files as well.

Note: rm does not remove files permanently. Instead it is copied to a special directory call a "tomb". A file may reside in a tomb for at most 24 hours. Therefore, if you accidentally delete a file and then realize that you want it back, you can get it back by using the program unrm like this:

	unrm filename

 

Remove mail messages

When using mh or xmh, expendable files are created. To remove these files manually, use the cd command to go into your ~/Mail/inbox directory:

	cd ~/Mail/inbox

Then, use the rm command to remove all files beginning with # or postxxxxx.

	rm -i #*

rm -i post*

Make sure you use #* or post*, not just * !!

Save onto floppy disks any files that you'd like to keep but don't need to keep on-line. For more information on this, please see the multiple stock answers under the WORKSTATIONS topic. Once you have successfully saved a file to floppy, and verified it, you can delete it from your account.

 

If you use Netscape, check your disk cache directory

Netscape caches your web pages into a directory called .netscape-cache in your home directory. This directory can grow REALLY quickly. To remove the cached files:

	% rm ~/.netscape-cache

If you use Netscape 2.02 or greater the cache files are stored in the directory called ~/.netscape/cache/. This directory can have multiple sub-directories, the easiest way to remove the cache is to start Netscape and choose Clear Disk Cache Now from the Network Preferences under the Options menu.

For more information on how to keep this directory under control, so you don't have to manually remove the files every day - look at the Netscape Answer - Disk Cache Files Netscape Leaves.

Compress files

Compress any files that you want to keep on-line, but don't access every day. You can compress a file by typing:

 

	compress filename

That will compress the file, and rename it filename.Z. For more information about compress, type:

 

	man compress

WARNING!! You must be very careful about using the compress command if you are already over your quota, or else you risk LOSING YOUR FILES! Follow these steps to successfully compress the file when over quota:

mv filename /usr/tmp
cd /usr/tmp
compress filename
mv filename.Z ~/

Please pay attention to any error message you might get. Since the file will be temporarily outside your home directory, if anything happens to it you might lose it.

 

Request a Quota Increase

If after trying all these options you still find you need more space, consult your Site Specialist to request a quota increase.

Be sure to include your username, the reason you need more space, approximately how long you will need the additional space, and an estimate of how much more space you need.

Last Modified: Dec 19, 2016 11:12 am US/Eastern
Created: Oct 9, 2007 1:35 pm GMT-4 by admin
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