How to enable GlusterFS volume quotas

Enabling quotas on a GlusterFS volume keeps shared storage predictable by limiting how much space a directory tree can consume, reducing the chance of a single workload filling the bricks and causing service disruption.

GlusterFS enforces quotas at the volume level through the gluster volume quota subsystem. Enabling quotas turns on quota accounting for the volume and sets the features.quota option, which must be enabled before any limit-usage rules can be applied.

Quota accounting introduces additional metadata work and may require background initialization on volumes with existing data, so enabling quotas during quieter periods helps avoid unexpected latency. Commands must be executed on a node with the gluster CLI and connectivity to the cluster management plane.

1. Confirm the target GlusterFS volume is started.

   $ sudo gluster volume info volume1
   Volume Name: volume1
   Status: Started

   Replace volume1 with the target volume name.

2. Enable quotas for the volume.

   $ sudo gluster volume quota volume1 enable
   volume quota: success: quota enabled for volume volume1

   Quota accounting can add overhead and may take time to initialize on large or busy volumes.

3. Verify the quota feature reports enabled.

   $ sudo gluster volume get volume1 features.quota
   Option                                  Value
   ------                                  -----
   features.quota                          on

   features.quota set to on indicates quota accounting is active.

4. List current quota entries to confirm the quota system is active.

   $ sudo gluster volume quota volume1 list
   No quota configured

   No quota configured is expected until at least one quota limit is set.