topic Re: Users home directories and quotas in ONTAP Discussions

Users home directories and quotas

andersdg6 — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:28:02 GMT

we have a 3240 running 8.3.2 - we have moved our home directories onto an svm - all are accessible.

we would like to apply user and or group quotas - whichever is best / recommended.

i have tried to set up a qtree & user quota for myself - the error i get states that the user / user i.d.

cannot be found.

can we use quotas is our situation, or do we need to change our configuration?

any help you can provide would be appreciated....

Re: Users home directories and quotas

sgrant — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 14:43:45 GMT

Hello,

Home drives definately support the use of quotas. Does KB How to create and apply quota policies in clustered Data ONTAP or this cheat sheet from the Commmunities: Setting up a Vserver for user home directories in a Windows File Sharing environment help?

The format for a domain user should be: volume quota policy rule create -target DOMAINuser1,DOMAIN\user2 -qtree qtree1 (plus the other command parameters)

To create a quota for all users when accessing their home drives (note -target here is "" and applies to all qtrees in volume home1) : volume quota policy rule create -target "" -qtree "" -volume home1 (plus the other command parameters)

Or is this a Domain authentication type issue?

Thanks,

Grant.

Re: Users home directories and quotas

andersdg6 — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 12:10:49 GMT

i appreciate your help.

i've had some sucess - which only raises more questions.

we have no windows clients, so we're using unix security. i have been able to create & apply user quotas - is there a reason i can only use the uid & not a userid? i also notice a line or record for each user quota created in the gui under quotas - those lines / records are only indicating that a quota has been created & or applied for that account, correct?

if i applied an all user rule - using the "" target - i'm guessing i would only see one such line / record. i'm also guessing the "" - all-user rule would apply to root as well.

can a generic "" rule be applied along with more specific rules for different accounts? for example, the "" rule would have a hard limit of 1 tb - but we might have some users that need 2 tb, and root would need even more - is there a way to manage this situation? is it wise - or is there a reason to have user quotas & group quotas?

i only applied hard limits, now i need to work on the soft limits.

thanks again, and if i'm missing / forgetting anything - any help would be appreciated....

also, for now i'm not using qtrees - do i really need them?

Re: Users home directories and quotas

andris — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:46:28 GMT

You might want to open up a technical case with Support to answer the specific questions you have...

More resources to check out:

How quotas work with users and groups

https://kb.netapp.com/support/s/article/ka21A00000058fo/FAQ-Quotas