quotaon

Additional Notes

quotaon activates disk quota enforcement on one or more filesystems. It reads the quota database files (aquota.user and aquota.group) and tells the kernel to begin tracking and enforcing user and group disk limits.

System administrators run quotaon after creating quota files with quotacheck, after a reboot (typically triggered by init scripts or systemd units), or after re-enabling quotas following maintenance. Quotas must be enabled in /etc/fstab with the usrquota and/or grpquota mount options.

Syntax

quotaon [options] [filesystem...]

Parameters

• filesystem: Mount point or device path to enable quotas on.

Common Options

• -a, --all: Enable quotas on all filesystems with quota support in /etc/fstab.
• -u, --user: Enable user quotas only.
• -g, --group: Enable group quotas only.
• -v, --verbose: Show detailed output.
• -p, --print-state: Print whether quotas are on or off (does not change state).
• -f, --force: Force quota on even if there are problems.
• -x, --no-act: Dry run; show what would be done without enabling.

Examples

quotaon -a

Enable quotas on all filesystems.

quotaon /home

Enable quotas on the /home filesystem.

quotaon -ug -v /var

Enable both user and group quotas on /var with verbose output.

quotaon -a -v

Enable all quotas with verbose confirmation.

quotaon -p /home

Print whether quotas are enabled on /home.

quotaon -f /home

Force quota activation even if there are minor problems with quota files.

Practical Notes

• Run quotacheck before quotaon to ensure quota files are accurate.
• On most distributions, quotaon -a is run automatically at boot from init scripts or systemd units.
• After enabling quotas, verify with repquota -a or quota -v.
• If quotaon reports errors, the quota files may be corrupt. Run quotacheck -m to repair them.
• Quotas can be enabled and disabled without unmounting the filesystem.
• The -p option is useful in scripts to check quota status before taking action.