Quota

In June 2018, we start to enforce quota on the home directory servers.

Q: How much quotum do I have?

A: Usually 50GB. But see the next question. If you had more space in use when we moved you, your quotum is usage + 10GB. But we'll reduce it in the future, as you move stuff to /projects.

Q: How much of that is free?

A: Ask a shell:

quota

It will tell you how much you have, and how much is in use.

Q: What if I exceed my quotum?

A: You won't be able to write any more. (But other users still will. That's the point.)

Q: I need more space. What do I do?

A: You contact lwp@rug.nl. We give you space under /project. To do it, we need thes questions answered:

• Name: What should we call that directory under /project?
• Size: How much space do you need? If we need to set up an entire new server for you, especially consider the next question.
• Pay: Who is authorizing that use? (Cc: to supervisor, Demand Manager or whomever)
• Removal: When can we discard that data? If never, consider the next question.
• Succession: You are going to be the owner of that project directory. Three months after your account is revoked, we remove the data. If that should not happen, tell us whom to give it to.

Q: I exceeded my quota. All my programs started complaining, and I can't work any more. I can't even log in any more.

A: That's a pity. In the worst case, press <CTR><F2> to get to a text-mode prompt. Log in, and delete some stuff until there is free space. After you logged out, <CTRL><F7> to get back to a graphics mode screen, and perhaps reboot. You should be able to work again.

'Q: Quota are a nuisance! Why do we have to have them!?!

'A: If large file systems break, fixing them takes weeks. So we want small filesystems. But if one single user writes too much data, all your lwps stop working. And on a small filesystem, the risk is considerable.

Q: Why this artificial split between $HOME and /project?

A: All your programs (shells, editors, browsers, mail, Matlab, etc. etc.) write to $HOME by default. If $HOME is full, all of those break, and some corrupt their data - silently, if you have bad luck. We don't want this for any significant number of users. If /project (or part of it) overflows, only the programs break that were specifically directed to it. That's still bad, but not at all as bad as all your programs failing.