apache/hadoop · error · IllegalArgumentException

"{}" is not a valid value for a quota.

Error message

"{}" is not a valid value for a quota.

What it means

Constructor argument parser for `hdfs dfsadmin -setSpaceQuota <quota> <path>...`. The first positional argument is parsed with StringUtils.TraditionalBinaryPrefix.string2long, which accepts plain integers and binary-prefixed values (1k, 1m, 1g, 1t, 1p). Anything else raises NumberFormatException, rethrown as IllegalArgumentException('"<str>" is not a valid value for a quota.') with the offending string quoted for easy spotting.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSAdmin.java:327

        "\t\t- DISK\n" +
        "\t\t- SSD\n" +
        "\t\t- ARCHIVE\n" +
        "\t\t- PROVIDED\n" +
        "\t\t- NVDIMM";

    private long quota; // the quota to be set
    private StorageType type;
    
    /** Constructor */
    SetSpaceQuotaCommand(String[] args, int pos, Configuration conf) {
      super(conf);
      CommandFormat c = new CommandFormat(2, Integer.MAX_VALUE);
      List<String> parameters = c.parse(args, pos);
      String str = parameters.remove(0).trim();
      try {
        quota = StringUtils.TraditionalBinaryPrefix.string2long(str);
      } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("\"" + str + "\" is not a valid value for a quota.");
      }
      String storageTypeString =
          StringUtils.popOptionWithArgument("-storageType", parameters);
      if (storageTypeString != null) {
        try {
          this.type = StorageType.parseStorageType(storageTypeString);
        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
          throw new IllegalArgumentException("Storage type "
              + storageTypeString
              + " is not available. Available storage types are "
              + StorageType.getTypesSupportingQuota());
        }
      }
      this.args = parameters.toArray(new String[parameters.size()]);
    }
    
    /** Check if a command is the setQuota command
     * 

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

1. Pass a plain byte count or a binary-prefix value: 1099511627776 or 1t
2. Normalize user input before invoking the CLI: strip commas/spaces, reject non suffix values
3. To remove a quota use hdfs dfsadmin -clrSpaceQuota <path>
4. Validate with TraditionalBinaryPrefix.string2long() in a try/catch before spawning the command

Example fix

# before
$ hdfs dfsadmin -setSpaceQuota 1TB /data
# IllegalArgumentException: "1TB" is not a valid value for a quota.

# after
$ hdfs dfsadmin -setSpaceQuota 1t /data
$ hdfs dfsadmin -setSpaceQuota 1099511627776 /data   # equivalent plain bytes

static long parseQuota(String raw) {
  try {
    return StringUtils.TraditionalBinaryPrefix.string2long(raw.trim());
  } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("'" + raw + "' is not a quota; use 1024, 10m, 1t ...", e);
  }
}

static boolean isValidQuota(String s) {
  try { StringUtils.TraditionalBinaryPrefix.string2long(s.trim()); return true; }
  catch (NumberFormatException e) { return false; }
}

catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
  if (e.getMessage() != null && e.getMessage().contains("not a valid value for a quota"))
    return usage("quota must be a long or binary-prefixed value like 1t");
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: hdfs dfsadmin -setSpaceQuota abc /data; -setSpaceQuota 10XB /data (bad suffix); -setSpaceQuota 1,000,000 /data (commas); shell quoting that passes an empty string as the first parameter.

Common situations: Scripts feeding human-formatted numbers or SI units (1MB, 10GB with 'B'); users trying 'none' or 'unlimited' (not valid here — use -clrSpaceQuota); copy-paste of nameservice quotas from a doc into the CLI.

Related errors

• Storage type {} is not available. Available storage types ar
• Failed to convert "{}" to RollingUpgradeAction
• Cannot parse nsQuota: {}
• Cannot parse ssQuota: {}
• Unable to parse relative time value of {}: {} is not a numbe

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dc1299672ec3aca0. Report an issue: GitHub.