Quota questions

[Joe Smith]

(Sun-3/140, SunOS 4.0)

We seem to be having problems with quotas getting out of touch with
reality.  Basically, quota's idea of user's space usage isn't updated - it
gets behind.  This leads to the disk filling up when someone's job goes
berserk, or to denied writes even though the user has cleaned up.  Running
quotacheck by hand fixes the quotas.

I've RTFM 2x and checked the installation (though I've been known to miss
things on occaison :-)).  Quotas are enabled in the current /vmunix, and
quota{on,check} are run from rc.  The manual mentions that quotacheck
should be run at boot-up and warns:

     quotacheck accesses the raw device in calculating the actual
     disk  usage  for  each user.  Thus, the file systems checked
     should be quiescent while quotacheck is running.

Would putting quotacheck in the crontab fix our problem?  If so, just what
is a 'quiescent' file system?  Is there any way to check whether it's safe
to run?  If nothing can be writing while quotacheck runs, then the system
has to be single-user, no?

Maybe just running quotaon regularly would do it.  But why would the
quotas go 'off'?  I'm beginning to ramble - you get the picture.  Any
suggestions?

 Joe Smith
 University of Pennsylvania                    jes at mbio.med.upenn.edu
 Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics          (215) 898-8348
 Philadelphia, PA 19104-6059