Learning Windows Server 2003, Second Edition

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2008 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

88

|

Chapter 3: File, Print, and User Services

Configuring Quotas with the FSRM

It’s more straightforward to configure quotas using the FSRM, as the interface is

cleaner and the rules a bit more flexible. Using the FSRM, you can create quotas for

specific folders or volumes and configure the notifications generated by Windows

when those quotas are exceeded. I’ve covered that scenario in the previous section in

this chapter on quotas. But FSRM takes it a couple of steps further by allowing you

to customize “auto quotas” that automatically apply to both existing and future fold-

ers, and define quota templates that can be used anywhere in an organization’s IT

infrastructure.

Let’s start off with simply applying a quota to a single folder. To do so, within the

FSRM, double-click the Quota Management item in the middle pane, and then

double-click on Quotas. From the right pane, click the Create Quota link. You’ll see

a screen much like Figure 3-19.

Enter the path to the folder in the top box, or click Browse to find it graphically.

Select Create quota on path, and then choose either a preexisting template, which

Figure 3-19. The Create Quota screen

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2008 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

The File Server Resource Manager

|

89

offers some preconfigured limits, or choose the Define custom quota properties

option and click the Custom Properties button. If you select the latter option, you’ll

be prompted with the Quota Properties screen, where you can enter the space limit,

define whether the quota is hard or soft, and add different notification thresholds.

Click OK when you’re done, and the summary window on the Create Quota screen

will show your selections. If all looks well, then click Create, and the quota place-

ment is complete.

That process works well for one-off quota needs, but suppose that you want to cen-

tralize quota management across all folders and volumes. The best way to do that is

to use the quota template facility with FSRM. By applying quota templates to fold-

ers, you can simply make one change to the template’s configuration, and all folders

to which that template has been applied will reflect the change. Think of it as having

a “group” of quotas to make administration simpler.

To make a quota template, double-click the Quota Management item in the middle

pane of the FSRM and then double-click on Quota Templates. From the right pane,

click the Create Quota Template link. You’ll see a screen much like Figure 3-20.

In the top drop-down box, you can select an existing template and copy the settings

from it into the new template you’re creating, which is a great timesaver when you

need to make just a few minor changes. Otherwise, enter the template name, a

friendly name if you wish, and then select the space limit and the severity of the

limit. You can also configure the specific thresholds for notification when users hit a

quota. Click Add to define a new notification; you will see the Add Threshold screen

appear, as shown in Figure 3-21.

Note the first box, called “Generate notifications when usage reaches (%).” In this

box, specify the actual threshold at which the action you’re going to define on these

screens will take place. Now, the most common notification administrators send is

an email message, both to the user who exceeded the limit and to the administrator

himself. On the E-mail Message tab, you can check to whom to send such messages,

and also change the text of the message. On the Event Log tab, you can customize

the text of a warning event that will be sent to the Event Log, and on the Command

tab you can define a script or program that will be run when a user exceeds the

threshold you set. Finally, on the Report tab, you can tell the FSRM to automatically

generate a storage report (covered a bit later in this section) when the quota is

exceeded. Each of these tabs has a straightforward interface. Click OK when you’ve

finished, and then OK again to finish creating the template.

Once the template is in place, you can use it to apply quotas to specific folders. Then

when you need to increase the quota on all folders using a given template, for exam-

ple, you can simply edit the space limit field within the template definition, and all

folders will then reflect the new limit.