Fixing Over-Quota Problems
2.23 Fixing over-quota problems
When you are told that you are "over quota," it means that you are using
more disk space than you are permitted to use. We enforce disk usage quotas
so that the disk space we have available is used fairly by all of our users.
If you get this message and you do not remove files in the time allotted,
you will not be able to save any files in your account and you could risk
removing files/mail from your account because email programs
may not work properly.
To execute any of the following commands below you must use a Secure Shell(SSH) Terminal session.
For more information about SSH capibilites for PC's and older Macs please go to the following UR website:
http://mail.rochester.edu
To access a terminal session on a Mac with an operating system of OSX and newer please do the following:
Click the hardrive icon on the desktop, click applications, click utilities, click terminal.
At the prompt type ssh -1 (your username)@mail.rochester.edu
FYI: The -1 is a dash one.
Note: Do not use parenthesis around your username.
To see your current account quota, At the terminal prompt type the command:
quota
This will give you output that looks something like:
146M /u/consult/ski2
This would equal 146Meg.
PLEASE CONTACT
problem@mail.rochester.edu if you have any questions.
NOTE: CURRENTLY THE QUOTA -V OPTION IS NOT AVAILABLE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY
INCONVENIENCE.
To see your quotas using the quota -v option, At the terminal prompt type the command:
quota -v
This will give you output that looks something like:
Disk quotas for someuser (uid 90210):
Filesystem usage quota limit timeleft files quota limit timeleft
/home1 0 100MB 200MB 0 768 2048
/u 0 100MB 200MB 0 768 2048
/home2 2641 100MB 200MB 2 days 57 768 2048
/home3 0 100MB 200MB 0 768 2048
The quota command will show you several "filesystems," or logical disk drives,
as shown above. However, you need only be concerned with the filesystem
entry that has a non-zero "usage" amount. This is the filesystem where your
home directory is located. You cannot save files on the other filesystems.
The "usage" column shows how much disk space, in kilobytes (Kb),
you're currently using.
The "quota" column shows your "soft" quota: the
point at which the system starts to warn you. You should not exceed your
soft quota. Most student accounts on mail have a soft quota of 100
megabytes.
The "limit" column shows your "hard" quota: the
point at which the system will refuse to let you save any more data. If you
approach your limit, you may lose data, because the system will not let you
save anything. Also, if you use more than half your limit, you may lose
saved e-mail.
To see which files are consuming space, use the "-l"
option to the "ls" command, to produce a "long" listing with file
sizes:
1 mail% ls -l
drwx--l--- 2 cymi_ss sstaff 512 Jun 10 15:16 News
-rw------- 1 cymi_ss sstaff 16279 Dec 19 1996 lynx.cfg
-rw-r--r-- 1 cymi_ss sstaff 5408 Dec 9 1996 pine-faq
In the example above, you can see that the file "lynx.cfg"
takes up 16,279 bytes (the center column). To get this value in kilobytes, as
displayed by quota, you'll need to divide it by 1,024.
Notice that the entry "News" is a directory, not
a file. You can tell because the column at the far left begins with a
"d" instead of a dash. The size entry for a directory is
largely meaningless, and should be ignored. (You should do a long listing
of the directory to see if there are large files inside.)
You can then download or remove the files. Information on
downloading files is available under the subtitle File Management Tools on the mail.rochester.edu webpage. We can't offer
instructions here, because they're too extensive for this forum.
You can remove a file by typing
rm filename
where "filename" is the name of the file you want to remove.
Your mail and your quota
Please note that any mail that you may have saved, whether in Webmail or some
other mail program is saved in your account and it counts towards your
quota. In the case of Webmail, mail is most often saved to the 'mail'
directory. It is suggested that you use your favorite mail program to
delete unwanted messages and NOT simply type 'rm mailfolder'. This is to
ensure that you delete the mail messages that you want to delete and not the
entire folder where you may have some messages you need and some you don't
need.
Make sure you check your sent mail folder. Webmail automatically saves sent mail
and if you don't clear it out it can add up towards your quota. To get to
your sent mail folder: In Webmail go to the folder list and look for
a folder called sent-mail. In Pine go to the folder list by typing `l` (lowercase L) then look for a folder called sent-mail.
Processes running in the background
If you don't seem to have many large files that are causing you to go over
quota you may have processes running in the background. This could have occurred
if you accidentally got logged out while you were in the process of downloading
a file or something similar to that.
First you can try running the command:
killprocs
It is a program that is designed to assist you in terminating abandoned and
rogue processes. It will not terminate any processes associated with your
current terminal port.
Killprocs will display each process you own, and if
a process is not associated with your current terminal port, will ask if you
wish to kill the process. You may answer 't' (to terminate), 'i' (to
ignore), or 'q' (to quit).
To check what processes you are running you can type the following command:
ps -u userId
and you will get an output similar to the following:
PID TTY TIME CMD
4870 pts/127 0:03 tcsh
24815 pts/41 0:02 tcsh
25035 pts/41 0:00 sz
If you type 'tty' at your mail prompt you will see what port you are logged in
at currently. This number should correspond to the column above labeled TTY.
In this example if I typed tty, I would get as output:
/dev/pts/127
So I am currently logged in at port 127, which means the processes running on
port 41 is from a previous login session and are contributing to my quota.
To kill those processes you can type 'kill PID' at the mail prompt. In this
case if I typed:
kill 24815
kill 25035
It would kill those two extra processes started during another login session.
Last updated October 06, 2005
If you couldn't find the help you needed, or if you have suggestions or
corrections to this document, please let us know by sending electronic mail,
appropriately, to:
problem@mail.rochester.edu or
problem@troi.cc.rochester.edu
Please note that we only provide support for our systems. If you send
us a problem from outside mail or troi we cannot answer it.
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