Managing GPFS quotas

The GPFS quota system helps you to control the allocation of files and data blocks in a file system.

GPFS quotas can be defined for:
  • Individual users
  • Groups of users
  • Individual filesets

Quotas are enabled by the system administrator when control over the amount of space used by the individual users, groups of users, or individual filesets is required. By default, user and group quota limits are enforced across the entire file system. Optionally, the scope of quota enforcement can be limited to an individual fileset boundary.

Quota accounting depends on a consistent mapping between user names and their numeric identifiers. This means that a single user who is accessing a quota-enabled file system from different nodes must be mapped to the same numeric user identifier from each node. Within a local cluster, the mapping is done by ensuring that /etc/passwd and /etc/group are identical across the cluster. When accessing quota-enabled file systems from other clusters, ensure that individual users who are accessing the quota-enabled file system have equivalent entries in /etc/passwd and /etc/group. Or, use the user identity mapping facility that is outlined in the UID Mapping for GPFS in a Multi-cluster Environment IBM white paper (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/storage-scale?topic=STXKQY/uid_gpfs.pdf).

Note: A large number of quota records per file system can result from the following scenarios:
  • There are a very large number of users, groups, or filesets.
  • If the --perfileset-quota option is enabled, the number of possible quota records is the number of filesets times number of users (and groups).

GUI navigation

To work with this function in the GUI, log on to the IBM Storage Scale GUI and select Files > Quotas.

For GPFS fileset quotas, see Filesets.

Note: Windows nodes may be included in clusters that use GPFS quotas. However, Windows nodes do not support the quota commands.