quotacheck
quotacheck(8) quotacheck(8)
NAME
quotacheck - scan a filesystem for disk usage, create, check and repair
quota files
SYNOPSIS
quotacheck [ -gubcfinvdMmR ] [ -F quota-format ] -a | filesystem
DESCRIPTION
quotacheck examines each filesystem, builds a table of current disk
usage, and compares this table against that recorded in the disk quota
file for the filesystem (this step is ommitted if option -c is speci-
fied). If any inconsistencies are detected, both the quota file and the
current system copy of the incorrect quotas are updated (the latter
only occurs if an active filesystem is checked which is not advised).
By default, only user quotas are checked. quotacheck expects each
filesystem to be checked to have quota files named [a]quota.user and
[a]quota.group located at the root of the associated filesystem. If a
file is not present, quotacheck will create it.
If the quota file is corrupted, quotacheck tries to save as much data
as possible. Rescuing data may need user intervention. With no addi-
tional options quotacheck will simply exit in such a situation. When in
interactive mode (option -i) , the user is asked for advice. Advice can
also be provided from command line (see option -n) , which is useful
when quotacheck is run automatically (ie. from script) and failure is
unacceptable.
quotacheck should be run each time the system boots and mounts non-
valid filesystems. This is most likely to happen after a system crash.
It is strongly recommended to run quotacheck with quotas turned off on
for the filesystem. Otherwise, possible damage or loss to data in the
quota files can result. It is also unwise to run quotacheck on a live
filesystem as actual usage may change during the scan. To prevent
this, quotacheck tries to remount the filesystem read-only before
starting the scan. After the scan is done it remounts the filesystem
read-write. You can disable this with option -m. You can also make
quotacheck ignore the failure to remount the filesystem read-only with
option -M.
OPTIONS
-b Forces quotacheck to make backups of the quota file before writ-
ing the new data.
-v quotacheck reports its operation as it progresses. Normally it
operates silently.
-d Enable debugging mode. It will result in a lot of information
which can be used in debugging the program. The output is very
verbose and the scan will be slow.
-u Only user quotas listed in /etc/mtab or on the filesystems spec-
ified are to be checked. This is the default action.
-g Only group quotas listed in /etc/mtab or on the filesystems
specified are to be checked.
-c Don't read existing quota files. Just perform a new scan and
save it to disk. quotacheck also skips scanning of old quota
files when they are not found.
-f Forces checking of filesystems with quotas enabled. This is not
recommended as the created quota files may be out of sync.
-M This flag forces checking of filesystem in read-write mode if a
remount fails. Do this only when you are sure no process will
write to a filesystem while scanning.
-m Don't try to remount filesystem read-only. See comment with
option -M.
-i Interactive mode. By default quotacheck exits when it finds an
error. In interactive mode user is asked for input instead. See
option -n.
-n If the quota files become corrupted, it is possible for dupli-
cate entries for a single user or group ID to exist. Normally
in this case, quotacheck exits or asks user for input. When this
option is set, the first entry found is always used (this option
works in interactive mode too).
-F format-name
Check quota for specified format (ie. don't perform format auto-
detection). This is recommended as detection might not work well
on corrupted quota files. Possible format names are: vfsold
(version 1 quota), vfsv0 (version 2 quota), rpc (quota over
NFS), xfs (quota on XFS filesystem)
-a Check all mounted non-NFS filesystems in /etc/mtab
-R When used together with the -a option, all filesystems except
for the root filesystem are checked for quotas.
NOTE
quotacheck should only be run by super-user. Non-privileged users are
presumably not allowed to read all the directories on the given
filesystem.
SEE ALSO
quota(1), quotactl(2), fstab(5), quotaon(8), repquota(8), con-
vertquota(8), setquota(8), edquota(8), fsck(8), efsck(8), e2fsck(8),
xfsck(8)
FILES
aquota.user or aquota.group
located at filesystem root with quotas (version 2 quota,
non-XFS filesystems)
quota.user or quota.group
located at filesystem root with quotas (version 1 quota,
non-XFS filesystems)
/etc/mtab names and locations of mounted filesystems
AUTHOR
Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Based on old quotacheck by:
Edvard Tuinder <ed@elm.net>
Marco van Wieringen <mvw@planets.elm.net>
Fri Jul 20 2001 quotacheck(8)
