I see that you can only use qtree's in the root... ??? - What is the real difference between quotas and qtrees?
Filer qtrees are the entities on which you can slap tree quota restrictions in the /etc/quotas file. There are three types of quotas supported; User, group and tree. The former two are largely independent of qtree's, although they can be used in conjunction with them. The three can combine in relatively complicated ways and I'd recommend reading chapter 10 of the Systems Administration Guide for a full explanation.
??? - with 4.3.4 I can do non-root quota's for pure CIFS users right?
If you mean quotas on individual Windows/CIFS users that are not associated with qtrees, then yes. Effectively, you would just define a regular user quota for each client. You could use group quotas and default quotas too (default quotas are just special cases of user quotas).
example:
/cifs_home/<NT_username1> user 100M 20k /cifs_home/<NT_username2> user 100M 20k /cifs_home/<NT_username3> user 50M 10k
Right. This would be fine. Just remember that the first field, the quota target field for a user quota is ultimately there to specify the UID of the user you are putting a quota on. If you are going to use a directory pathname in this field, the UID for the user quota comes from the owner of that directory. For this to work, the directory /cifs_home/<NT_username1> would have to have an ownership of whatever UID <NT_username1> was equated to via <NT_username1>'s entry in /etc/passwd (or NIS).
??? - These are just quotas on user directories right?
No. User quotas are *not* specifically associated with the users home directory. User quotas expressed this way limit the users consumption of file and space resources on the root volume by default. If you want to limit the users space on another volume, you'd use the:
/cifs_home/<NT_username1> user@/vol/foo 100M 20K
syntax.
??? - I don't need quota trees for this type of individual CIFS user quotas do I?
Not if the above description is what you were looking for.
The manual says that the user must have an entry in /etc/passwd. ??? - Is this true in a pure NT/CIFS file space?
Yes.
??? - If so, Why? (no UID/GID?!)
Because the user and group quota mechanism needs the files and directories created on the file systems to be owned by the UID's and GID's it's trying to impose its limits on for things to work.
??? - Will this change with 5.x?
Not initially in 5.1 no. Sorry...
Lastly... ??? - Should I wait to impliment quotas until AFTER I go with 5.x or will my 4.3.4 quotas and qtrees transition over ok to 5.x?
Whatever system you come up with in 4.3.4 will transition just fine to 5.X as long as you keep doing things largely the same way. If you start creating multiple volumes in 5.X, then obviously some quota configurations may be effected by that. If you stop routinely mapping Windows/CIFS clients to valid UID's and GID's through /etc/passwd (which becomes perfectly feasible if you are using the NTFS compatible file system security in 5.1), then you will lose user and group quota-ing capability for those users, at least until we sort out some quota enhancements that will let you place quotas on users who are entirely defined by a Windows NT SID. However, tree quotas should keep on truckin' quite nicely, limiting even these kinds of users (the unmapped kind).
Keith