xfs_quota on storage shared by multiple hosts
 

I've got an array that is connected to multiple hosts via Infiniband. The filesystem of the array is xfs, so I'd like to institute quotas on a per-user basis using the xfs_quota program. I'm unsure about what the implications are of using xfs_quota on a storage system that is shared among multiple hosts. For example, do I need to set the quota limits on each individual host that has access to the array? Or is the quota metadata stored *on* the array, i.e. I only need to set the limit on one machine and it will be respected on all machines that have access to the array?

(Apologies if this is the wrong forum...it's partially software related (xfs_quota), but also partially hardware related...)

Since no-one has replied yet, can I suggest that you try the XFS mailing list (http://xfs.org/index.php/XFS_email_list_and_archives)?

I'd be interested to hear the answer.

Since I couldn't use the production machines for testing, I just took two random desktops, had one export a directory, and the other access it via nfs. On the desktop serving/exporting the directory, xfs_quota commands work to both set and get quota information. After setting a limit on the server/exporting desktop for a particular user, the remote machine accessing it via nfs respected the quota for that user (I couldn't create a file larger than the limit, with the expected "disk quota exceeded" message! xfs_quota doesn't report anything on the client host, so all setting/getting of data needs to be done on the server, but yeah, overall it looks like the quota metadata is stored on the filesystem itself. Problem solved!

Excellent. Thanks for the info.

If you wish, you can mark this thread as "Solved" using Thread Tools. I like self-solving threads. :-)