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Policy for user quotas for home directories for Linux

Policy

The default storage limit for users on the /home filesystem is 250MB. If all of your allocated space is used, you cannot grow files or make new ones in your home directory. Using the entire disk quota can cause your application to display an error. This limitation exists to reinforce the company's Data Retention Policy and allocate disk space fairly. Users should not store large files in the home directories. The home directories are designed for incidental storage for OS user files, and work files being used before moving them to a final location.

FAQs

Dow do I request more space?

Open a help ticket to the IT queue. The Linux team will review your request and work with you on the requirements. Be advised that exceptions to the main policy are very rare, because /home exists for work-related files which are primarily stored elsewhere. Storage of personal files and large work files in /home is not supported and is not a valid use case for an exception.

How do I check my disk usage and clean up files

You can view information about your home directory and how much space you are currently using. Command | Explanation
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du -hs * | sort -h

| Show all files and directories in the current directory, and sort by size

du -xBM --max-depth 3 /home/jdoe | sort -n | tail

| Show the largest 10 files and directories in /home/jdoe, drilling down to a max of 3 subdirectories

ls -al

| List all files and directories in the current directory

rm -i FILE1 FILE2 FILE3

| Delete files named FILE1, FILE2, and FILE3.

rmdir foobar

| Remove an empty directory named foobar

References

Similar guidelines for other organizations include

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