Linux Disk Quotas

Each Maseeh College computer account is given file-storage space. The amount of space you’re given is called your “disk quota.” Disk quota is determined by the category of your account.

Note: Your disk quota in both linux and cs unix are shared. This means that if you have 130MB, that is a combined total of all files in both home directories.

To see if you are within you disk quota limit login to https://intranet.cecs.pdx.edu with your MCECS username and password.

If your disk usage is close to, or over, the hard limit, you might experience one or all of the following:

• unable to save files
• unable to open an application
• currently running applications may exhibit problems

When your disk usage reaches your working or soft limit, warnings are issued. The user has a week to get below the quota. If the total is more than ten megabytes greater than the quota, there is no grace period. The user will not be able to save any files until the total disk usage drops below the hard limit.

If you find yourself over quota, there are some things that can help.

1. Remove any core files (named “core”). These are often left when a program exits unexpectedly and ungracefully. They can be very large.
2. Check your .mozilla directory and remove the files in the cache subdirectory. You can reduce the size of this cache through the Tools->Clear Recent History dialog box in Firefox.
3. Consider throwing out old mail and object ( *.o) files.
4. Compress files that you may need but seldom use, and investigate backing up archival material to a USB drive or some other medium.

If you have a compelling need to increase your disk quota, it may be increased. You will need a faculty member to sponsor you by sending a request to support@cat.pdx.edu on your behalf.

We advise you to go through your files regularly and delete or compress unneeded files; save e-mail attachments as files, and delete the original mail; and delete or trim Internet browser caches.

du -sk /home/username

Sums up your total disk usage (in kilobytes).

du -ak /home/username | sort -n | less

Displays every file and its disk space (in kilobytes).
The “sort -n” sorts it numerically and “less” gives you just a screenful at a time (press the spacebar to see next screen).