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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 lat-
ter 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 use-
ful 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
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
writing 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
specified 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 and writing of new quota files on 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 and fix quota files of specified format (ie. don't per-
form 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
Based on old quotacheck by:
Edvard Tuinder
Marco van Wieringen
Fri Jul 20 2001 quotacheck(8)
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