Why is the mtime on /etc/db/quota.db set to zero (Dec 31, 1969 EST) ? Is this where the user quotas and disk consumption are stored?

The access to /etc/db/quota.db bypasses the normal filesystem code that keeps track of things like a and m times.

In retrospect, I should have made /etc/db/quota.db a hidden file, and I think there's an outstanding bug to fix this. At the time it seemed easier, for backward and forward compatibility, just to stick it into /etc/db, but since then we've run into a variety of issues with people wondering about it, or removing it, or asking why the times aren't correct...

Live and learn. :-)

Dave