trying to avoid a lengthy quotacheck by deleting all quota data

[Harry]

Hi there,

We've got a moderately large disk (~2TB) into an inconsistent state, 
such that it's going to want a quotacheck the next time we mount it 
(it's currently mounted with quota accounting inactive).  Our tests 
suggest this is going to take several hours, and cause an outage we 
can't afford.

We're wondering whether there's a 'nuke the site from orbit' option that 
will let us avoid it.  The plan would be to:
- switch off quotas and delete them completely, using the commands:
   -- disable
   -- off
   -- remove
- remount the drive with -o prjquota, hoping that there will not be a 
quotacheck, because we've deleted all the old quota data
- run a script gradually restore all the quotas, one by one and in good 
time, from our own external backups (we've got the quotas in a database 
basically).

So the questions are:
- is there a way to remove all quota information from a mounted drive?
(the current mount status seems to be that it tried to mount it with -o 
prjquota but that quota accounting is *not* active)
- will it work and let us remount the drive with -o prjquota without 
causing a quotacheck?

Answers on a postcard, received with the utmost gratitude.

Rgds,
Harry + the PythonAnywhere team.

-- 
Harry Percival
Developer
harry at pythonanywhere.com

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