Checking quotas

The mmcheckquota command counts inode and space usage for a file system and writes the collected data into quota files.

You must use the mmcheckquota command if any of the following are true:
  1. Quota information is lost due to node failure.

    Node failure might leave users unable to open files or deny them disk space that their quotas should allow.

  2. The in doubt value approaches the quota limit. To see the in doubt value, use the mmlsquota or mmrepquota commands.

    As the sum of the in doubt value and the current usage cannot exceed the hard limit, the actual block space and number of files available to the user, group, or fileset might be constrained by the in doubt value. Should the in doubt value approach a significant percentage of the quota, use the mmcheckquota command to account for the lost space and files.

Note: Running mmcheckquota is also recommended (in an appropriate time slot) if the following message is displayed after running mmrepquota, mmlsquota, or mmedquota:
Quota accounting information is inaccurate and quotacheck must be run.

When issuing the mmcheckquota command on a mounted file system, negative in doubt values might be reported if the quota server processes a combination of up-to-date and back-level information. This is a transient situation and can be ignored.

During the normal operation of file systems with quotas enabled (not running mmcheckquota online), the usage data reflects the actual usage of the blocks and inodes in the sense that if you delete files you should see the usage amount decrease. The in doubt value does not reflect how much the user has used already, it is just the number of quotas that the quota server has assigned to its clients. The quota server does not know whether the assigned amount has been used or not. The only situation where the in doubt value is important to the user is when the sum of the usage and the in doubt value is greater than the user's quota hard limit. In this case, the user is not allowed to allocate more blocks or inodes unless they bring the usage down.

For example, to check quotas for the file system fs1 and report differences between calculated and recorded disk quotas, enter: 
mmcheckquota -v fs1
The information displayed shows that the quota information for USR7 was corrected. Due to a system failure, this information was lost at the server, which recorded 0 subblocks and 0 files. The current usage data that is counted is 96 subblocks and 3 files. This is used to update the quota: 
fs1: quota check found the following differences:
USR7: 96 subblocks counted (was 0); 3 inodes counted (was 0)
Note: In cases where small files do not have an extra block that is allocated for them, quota usage might show less space usage than expected.

For complete usage information, see the mmcheckquota command.