apache/hadoop · error · IllegalArgumentException

Cannot parse nsQuota: {}

Error message

Cannot parse nsQuota: {}

What it means

Thrown by HDFS Router-Based Federation's admin CLI: dfsrouteradmin -setQuota parses the token after -nsQuota with Long.parseLong. nsQuota is a namespace quota (a count of files and directories), so only a plain signed 64-bit integer is accepted; the value is validated client-side before any RPC reaches the Router. Any other shape -- binary suffixes, decimals, letters -- raises this IllegalArgumentException.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs-rbf/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/federation/RouterAdmin.java:986

  /**
   * Set quota for a mount table entry.
   *
   * @param parameters Parameters of the quota.
   * @param i Index in the parameters.
   */
  private boolean setQuota(String[] parameters, int i) throws IOException {
    long nsQuota = HdfsConstants.QUOTA_DONT_SET;
    long ssQuota = HdfsConstants.QUOTA_DONT_SET;

    String mount = parameters[i++];
    while (i < parameters.length) {
      if (parameters[i].equals("-nsQuota")) {
        i++;
        try {
          nsQuota = Long.parseLong(parameters[i]);
        } catch (Exception e) {
          throw new IllegalArgumentException(
              "Cannot parse nsQuota: " + parameters[i]);
        }
      } else if (parameters[i].equals("-ssQuota")) {
        i++;
        try {
          ssQuota = StringUtils.TraditionalBinaryPrefix
              .string2long(parameters[i]);
        } catch (Exception e) {
          throw new IllegalArgumentException(
              "Cannot parse ssQuota: " + parameters[i]);
        }
      } else {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "Invalid argument : " + parameters[i]);
      }

      i++;
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

1. Pass a plain integer for -nsQuota, e.g. -nsQuota 100000 (files/directories count, no unit)
2. Put size units on -ssQuota instead, which accepts TraditionalBinaryPrefix values like 100GB, 5t, 2TB
3. If the value comes from a script, quote it and assert it matches ^-?[0-9]+$ before invoking the CLI
4. To remove quotas use 'hdfs dfsrouteradmin -clrQuota <path>' rather than magic numbers

Example fix

# before
hdfs dfsrouteradmin -setQuota /mount -nsQuota 100GB
# after
hdfs dfsrouteradmin -setQuota /mount -nsQuota 100000 -ssQuota 100GB

# shell wrapper: verify -nsQuota value is a plain integer before invoking the CLI
NS="$1"
if ! [[ "$NS" =~ ^-?[0-9]+$ ]]; then
  echo "nsQuota must be a plain integer (got: $NS)" >&2; exit 2
fi
hdfs dfsrouteradmin -setQuota "$MOUNT" -nsQuota "$NS"

In Java wrappers around RouterAdmin, catch IllegalArgumentException and rethrow with the command usage, since the CLI exits nonzero on the first malformed flag.

When it happens

Trigger: hdfs dfsrouteradmin -setQuota /mount -nsQuota 100GB (suffix belongs to -ssQuota only); -nsQuota 1.5; -nsQuota abc; a value larger than Long.MAX_VALUE; an unquoted shell variable expanding to an empty or malformed token.

Common situations: Users carry over habits from 'hdfs dfsadmin -setSpaceQuota 100g' and paste unit suffixes onto -nsQuota. Scripts that assemble the command from user input or unquoted $VARIABLES also hit it. New RBF operators confusing namespace quota with storage-space quota.

Related errors

• Cannot parse ssQuota: {}
• Invalid argument : {}
• Input quota value should be a positive number.
• Must specify at least one of -nsQuota and -ssQuota.
• "{}" is not a valid value for a quota.

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f8aa79e77bdc5f4e. Report an issue: GitHub.