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How default quotas work

You can use default quotas to apply a quota to all instances of a given quota type. For example, a default user quota affects all users on the system for the specified FlexVol volume or qtree. In addition, default quotas enable you to modify your quotas easily.

You can use default quotas to automatically apply a limit to a large set of quota targets without having to create separate quotas for each target. For example, if you want to limit most users to 10 GB of disk space, you can specify a default user quota of 10 GB of disk space instead of creating a quota for each user. If you have specific users for whom you want to apply a different limit, you can create explicit quotas for those users. (Explicit quotas—quotas with a specific target or list of targets—override default quotas.)

In addition, default quotas enable you to use resizing rather than reinitialization when you want quota changes to take effect. For example, if you add an explicit user quota to a volume that already has a default user quota, you can activate the new quota by resizing.

Default quotas can be applied to all three types of quota target (users, groups, and qtrees).

Default quotas do not necessarily have specified limits; a default quota can be a tracking quota.

A quota is indicated by a target that is either an empty string ("") or an asterisk (*), depending on the context:

  • When you create a quota using the volume quota policy rule create command, setting the -target parameter to an empty string ("") creates a default quota.

  • In the output of the volume quota policy rule show command, a default quota appears with an empty string ("") as the Target.

  • In the output of the volume quota report command, a default quota appears with an asterisk (*) as the ID and Quota Specifier.

Default user quota example​

The following quotas file uses a default user quota to apply a 50-MB limit on each user for vol1:
#Quota target type           disk  files  thold  sdisk  sfile #-----------  ----           ----  -----  -----  -----  ----- *             user@/vol/vol1  50M

If any user on the system enters a command that would cause that user's data to take up more than 50 MB in vol1 (for example, writing to a file from an editor), the command fails.