PowerScale OneFS

9.5.0.0 Web Administration Guide

9.5.0.0

October 2023
Notes, cautions, and warnings

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 Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to this guide........................................................................................... 23

About this guide.................................................................................................................................................................23
Scale-out NAS overview..................................................................................................................................................23
Where to get help............................................................................................................................................................. 23
Additional options for getting help.......................................................................................................................... 24

Chapter 2: PowerScale scale-out NAS......................................................................................... 25

OneFS storage architecture........................................................................................................................................... 25
Node components............................................................................................................................................................. 25
Internal and external networks...................................................................................................................................... 26
PowerScale cluster........................................................................................................................................................... 27
Cluster administration.................................................................................................................................................27
Quorum...........................................................................................................................................................................27
Splitting and merging..................................................................................................................................................28
Storage pools................................................................................................................................................................28
The OneFS operating system.........................................................................................................................................28
Mixed data-access protocol environments........................................................................................................... 29
Identity management and access control..............................................................................................................29
Structure of the file system........................................................................................................................................... 30
Data layout.................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Writing files................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Reading files................................................................................................................................................................. 30
Metadata layout............................................................................................................................................................31
Locks and concurrency............................................................................................................................................... 31
Striping............................................................................................................................................................................31
Data protection overview.................................................................................................................................................31
N+M data protection.................................................................................................................................................. 32
Data mirroring...............................................................................................................................................................33
The file system journal................................................................................................................................................33
Virtual hot spare (VHS)............................................................................................................................................. 33
Balancing protection with storage space.............................................................................................................. 33
Data compression..............................................................................................................................................................33
Software modules............................................................................................................................................................. 34

Chapter 3: General cluster administration................................................................................... 36

General cluster administration overview..................................................................................................................... 36
User interfaces...................................................................................................................................................................36
Connecting to the cluster................................................................................................................................................37
Log in to the web administration interface........................................................................................................... 37
Open an SSH connection to a cluster.................................................................................................................... 37
Licensing..............................................................................................................................................................................38
Software licenses........................................................................................................................................................ 38
Hardware tiers..............................................................................................................................................................38
License status.............................................................................................................................................................. 38

Contents 3
 Adding and removing licenses.................................................................................................................................. 39
Activating trial licenses............................................................................................................................................... 41
Certificates.......................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Viewing and Editing TLS Authority Certificates .................................................................................................. 41
Importing TLS Authority Certificates ..................................................................................................................... 41
Replacing TLS Authority Certificates - Overview............................................................................................... 42
Deleting TLS Authority Certificates .......................................................................................................................42
Viewing and Editing TLS Server Certificates ...................................................................................................... 42
Importing TLS Server Certificates ......................................................................................................................... 42
Configuring TLS Certificate Settings .................................................................................................................... 43
TLS certificate data example....................................................................................................................................43
Cluster identity...................................................................................................................................................................43
Set the cluster name and contact information.................................................................................................... 44
Cluster date and time....................................................................................................................................................... 44
Set the cluster date and time...................................................................................................................................44
Specify an NTP time server...................................................................................................................................... 44
SMTP email settings.........................................................................................................................................................45
Configure SMTP email settings............................................................................................................................... 45
Configuring the cluster join mode................................................................................................................................. 45
Specify the cluster join mode................................................................................................................................... 46
File system settings.......................................................................................................................................................... 46
Enable or disable access time tracking.................................................................................................................. 46
Specify the cluster character encoding.................................................................................................................46
Security hardening............................................................................................................................................................ 47
Cluster monitoring.............................................................................................................................................................47
Monitor the cluster..................................................................................................................................................... 48
View node status......................................................................................................................................................... 48
Monitoring cluster hardware.......................................................................................................................................... 48
View node hardware status...................................................................................................................................... 49
Chassis and drive states............................................................................................................................................ 49
Check battery status..................................................................................................................................................50
SNMP monitoring.........................................................................................................................................................51
Events and alerts...............................................................................................................................................................53
Events overview.......................................................................................................................................................... 53
Alerts overview............................................................................................................................................................ 53
Alert channel overview...............................................................................................................................................53
Event groups overview.............................................................................................................................................. 54
Viewing and modifying event groups......................................................................................................................54
Managing alerts........................................................................................................................................................... 55
Managing channels......................................................................................................................................................57
Managing event thresholds...................................................................................................................................... 59
Maintenance and testing........................................................................................................................................... 59
Cluster maintenance.........................................................................................................................................................60
Replacing node components..................................................................................................................................... 61
Upgrading node components.................................................................................................................................... 61
Automatic Replacement Recognition (ARR) for drives...................................................................................... 61
Managing drive firmware........................................................................................................................................... 62
Managing cluster nodes.............................................................................................................................................65
Upgrading OneFS........................................................................................................................................................ 66
Patching OneFS...........................................................................................................................................................66

4 Contents
 SupportAssist .................................................................................................................................................................... 67
SupportAssist Prerequisites......................................................................................................................................67
Obtaining an Access Key and PIN........................................................................................................................... 67
Enabling SupportAssist overview............................................................................................................................ 67
Viewing SupportAssist settings overview............................................................................................................. 68
Configuring SupportAssist overview...................................................................................................................... 69
SRS Summary.....................................................................................................................................................................70
SRS Telemetry............................................................................................................................................................. 70
Obtain signed OneFS license file for evaluation clusters...................................................................................70
Configuring and Enabling SRS Overview................................................................................................................71
Diagnostic commands and scripts........................................................................................................................... 72
Enabling SRS Telemetry.............................................................................................................................................73
Disabling SRS Telemetry............................................................................................................................................73

Chapter 4: Access zones..............................................................................................................74

Data Security overview ...................................................................................................................................................74
Base directory guidelines................................................................................................................................................. 74
Access zones best practices.......................................................................................................................................... 75
Access zones on a SyncIQ secondary cluster............................................................................................................ 75
Access zone limits............................................................................................................................................................. 76
Quality of service...............................................................................................................................................................76
Zone-based Role-based Access Control (zRBAC)....................................................................................................76
Integrated roles in non-System zones.................................................................................................................... 77
Zone-specific authentication providers....................................................................................................................... 78
Managing access zones................................................................................................................................................... 78
Create an access zone............................................................................................................................................... 78
Assign an overlapping base directory..................................................................................................................... 79
Manage authentication providers............................................................................................................................ 79
Manage authentication providers in an access zone.......................................................................................... 79
Associate an IP address pool with an access zone............................................................................................. 80
Modify an access zone...............................................................................................................................................80
Delete an access zone............................................................................................................................................... 80
View a list of access zones....................................................................................................................................... 80
Modify a role in an access zone................................................................................................................................81

Chapter 5: Authentication........................................................................................................... 82
Authentication overview..................................................................................................................................................82
Authentication provider features.................................................................................................................................. 82
Security Identifier (SID) history overview...................................................................................................................83
Supported authentication providers............................................................................................................................. 83
Active Directory.................................................................................................................................................................83
LDAP.....................................................................................................................................................................................84
NIS........................................................................................................................................................................................ 85
Kerberos authentication.................................................................................................................................................. 85
Keytabs and SPNs overview.....................................................................................................................................86
MIT Kerberos protocol support................................................................................................................................86
File provider........................................................................................................................................................................ 86
Local provider.....................................................................................................................................................................87
Multifactor authentication (MFA)................................................................................................................................. 87

Contents 5
 Single sign-on overview................................................................................................................................................... 87
Multi-instance active directory......................................................................................................................................88
LDAP public keys...............................................................................................................................................................88
Managing Active Directory providers...........................................................................................................................88
Configure an Active Directory provider................................................................................................................. 89
Modify an Active Directory provider.......................................................................................................................89
Delete an Active Directory provider....................................................................................................................... 90
Active Directory provider settings.......................................................................................................................... 90
Managing LDAP providers............................................................................................................................................... 91
Configure an LDAP provider......................................................................................................................................91
Modify an LDAP provider.......................................................................................................................................... 92
Delete an LDAP provider........................................................................................................................................... 92
LDAP query settings................................................................................................................................................... 92
LDAP advanced settings............................................................................................................................................93
Managing NIS providers.................................................................................................................................................. 94
Configure an NIS provider.........................................................................................................................................94
Modify an NIS provider.............................................................................................................................................. 95
Delete an NIS provider............................................................................................................................................... 95
Managing MIT Kerberos authentication...................................................................................................................... 95
Managing MIT Kerberos realms............................................................................................................................... 95
Managing MIT Kerberos providers.......................................................................................................................... 97
Managing MIT Kerberos domains............................................................................................................................ 99
Managing file providers..................................................................................................................................................100
Configure a file provider........................................................................................................................................... 101
Generate a password file.......................................................................................................................................... 101
Password file format.................................................................................................................................................102
Group file format........................................................................................................................................................103
Netgroup file format................................................................................................................................................. 103
Modify a file provider................................................................................................................................................ 103
Delete a file provider................................................................................................................................................. 104
Managing local users and groups.................................................................................................................................104
View a list of users or groups by provider........................................................................................................... 104
Create a local user.....................................................................................................................................................104
Create a local group.................................................................................................................................................. 105
Naming rules for local users and groups.............................................................................................................. 106
Modify a local user.................................................................................................................................................... 106
Modify a local group..................................................................................................................................................106
Delete a local user......................................................................................................................................................107
Delete a local group................................................................................................................................................... 107
Configure a login delay............................................................................................................................................. 107
Set a concurrent session limit.................................................................................................................................107
Set a new user account to disable when inactive............................................................................................. 108
Set an existing user account to disable when inactive.....................................................................................108
Configure minimum password requirements.......................................................................................................108
Configure the password hash type....................................................................................................................... 108
Set password expiration...........................................................................................................................................108
Set minimum new password changes...................................................................................................................108
Set lock users criteria............................................................................................................................................... 109
Reset a user password............................................................................................................................................. 109
Managing SSO ................................................................................................................................................................ 109

6 Contents
 Configure the Identity Provider to communicate with OneFS ...................................................................... 109
Configure SSO in OneFS ......................................................................................................................................... 110
Enable and test SSO...................................................................................................................................................111

Chapter 6: Administrative roles and privileges............................................................................112

Role-based access............................................................................................................................................................112
Roles.................................................................................................................................................................................... 112
Custom roles................................................................................................................................................................ 113
OneFS roles..................................................................................................................................................................113
Privileges............................................................................................................................................................................ 118
Supported OneFS privileges.................................................................................................................................... 119
Data backup and restore privileges....................................................................................................................... 127
Command-line interface privileges.........................................................................................................................127
Managing roles.................................................................................................................................................................. 131
Create a custom role................................................................................................................................................. 131
Modify a role................................................................................................................................................................ 131
Copy a role...................................................................................................................................................................132
Add a privilege to a custom role.............................................................................................................................132
Add a member to a role............................................................................................................................................ 132
Delete a custom role................................................................................................................................................. 133
View a role................................................................................................................................................................... 133
View privileges............................................................................................................................................................ 133

Chapter 7: Identity management................................................................................................ 134

Identity management overview.................................................................................................................................... 134
Identity types.................................................................................................................................................................... 134
Access tokens...................................................................................................................................................................135
Access token generation............................................................................................................................................... 135
ID mapping...................................................................................................................................................................136
User mapping.............................................................................................................................................................. 137
On-disk identity.......................................................................................................................................................... 138
Managing ID mappings................................................................................................................................................... 139
Create an identity mapping..................................................................................................................................... 139
Modify an identity mapping..................................................................................................................................... 139
Delete an identity mapping...................................................................................................................................... 140
View an identity mapping.........................................................................................................................................140
Flush the identity mapping cache.......................................................................................................................... 140
View a user token....................................................................................................................................................... 141
Configure identity mapping settings...................................................................................................................... 141
View identity mapping settings............................................................................................................................... 141
Managing user identities................................................................................................................................................ 142
View user identity...................................................................................................................................................... 142
Create a user-mapping rule..................................................................................................................................... 143
Test a user-mapping rule......................................................................................................................................... 143
Merge Windows and UNIX tokens.........................................................................................................................144
Retrieve the primary group from LDAP................................................................................................................145
Mapping rule options.................................................................................................................................................145
Mapping rule operators............................................................................................................................................ 146

Contents 7
 Chapter 8: Home directories...................................................................................................... 148
Home directories overview............................................................................................................................................148
Home directory permissions..........................................................................................................................................148
Authenticating SMB users.............................................................................................................................................148
Home directory creation through SMB...................................................................................................................... 149
Create home directories with expansion variables............................................................................................ 149
Create home directories with the --inheritable-path-acl option....................................................................150
Create special home directories with the SMB share %U variable................................................................151
Home directory creation through SSH and FTP.......................................................................................................151
Set the SSH or FTP login shell ...............................................................................................................................151
Set SSH/FTP home directory permissions..........................................................................................................152
Set SSH/FTP home directory creation options................................................................................................. 152
Provision home directories with dot files.............................................................................................................153
Home directory creation in a mixed environment....................................................................................................154
Interactions between ACLs and mode bits................................................................................................................154
Default home directory settings in authentication providers................................................................................154
Supported expansion variables.....................................................................................................................................155
Domain variables in home directory provisioning.....................................................................................................156

Chapter 9: Data access control.................................................................................................. 157

Data access control overview.......................................................................................................................................157
ACLs....................................................................................................................................................................................157
UNIX permissions.............................................................................................................................................................158
Mixed-permission environments.................................................................................................................................. 158
NFS access of Windows-created files..................................................................................................................158
SMB access of UNIX-created files........................................................................................................................158
Managing access permissions...................................................................................................................................... 159
View expected user permissions............................................................................................................................ 159
Configure access management settings.............................................................................................................. 160
Modify ACL policy settings......................................................................................................................................160
ACL policy settings.....................................................................................................................................................161
Run the PermissionRepair job.................................................................................................................................165

Chapter 10: File sharing............................................................................................................. 167

File sharing overview...................................................................................................................................................... 167
Mixed protocol environments................................................................................................................................. 167
Write caching with SmartCache............................................................................................................................ 168
SMB security.................................................................................................................................................................... 169
SMB shares in access zones...................................................................................................................................169
SMB Multichannel......................................................................................................................................................170
SMB share management through MMC............................................................................................................... 171
SMBv3 encryption..................................................................................................................................................... 172
SMB server-side copy...............................................................................................................................................172
SMB continuous availability..................................................................................................................................... 173
SMB file filtering.........................................................................................................................................................173
Symbolic links and SMB clients.............................................................................................................................. 174
Anonymous access to SMB shares........................................................................................................................175
Managing SMB settings........................................................................................................................................... 175

8 Contents
 Managing SMB shares.............................................................................................................................................. 179
NFS security..................................................................................................................................................................... 183
NFS exports................................................................................................................................................................ 184
NFS aliases.................................................................................................................................................................. 184
NFS log files................................................................................................................................................................ 184
Managing the NFS service...................................................................................................................................... 185
Managing NFS exports............................................................................................................................................. 186
Managing NFS aliases...............................................................................................................................................192
FTP......................................................................................................................................................................................193
Enable and configure FTP file sharing.................................................................................................................. 193
HTTP and HTTPS security............................................................................................................................................ 194
Enable and configure HTTP.................................................................................................................................... 194

Chapter 11: File filtering.............................................................................................................196

File filtering in an access zone......................................................................................................................................196
Enable and configure file filtering in an access zone.............................................................................................. 196
Modify file filtering settings in an access zone........................................................................................................ 197
View file filtering settings.............................................................................................................................................. 197

Chapter 12: Auditing.................................................................................................................. 198

Auditing overview............................................................................................................................................................ 198
Syslog................................................................................................................................................................................. 199
Syslog forwarding and TLS .......................................................................................................................................... 199
OpenBSM service........................................................................................................................................................... 200
Protocol audit events.....................................................................................................................................................200
Supported audit tools............................................................................................................................................... 201
Delivering protocol audit events to multiple CEE servers................................................................................201
Supported event types for protocol auditing......................................................................................................201
Audit log purging............................................................................................................................................................. 202
Managing audit settings................................................................................................................................................ 203
Enable configuration change auditing.................................................................................................................. 203
Forward configuration changes to syslog........................................................................................................... 203
Enable protocol access auditing............................................................................................................................ 203
Forward protocol access events to syslog ........................................................................................................ 204
Configure protocol audited zones.........................................................................................................................205
Configure protocol event filters............................................................................................................................ 205
Enable system auditing and forwarding ............................................................................................................. 205
Import certificate for TLS syslog forwarding.....................................................................................................206
Set the audit hostname........................................................................................................................................... 206
View audit settings................................................................................................................................................... 206
Automatic deletion.................................................................................................................................................... 207
Manual deletion......................................................................................................................................................... 209
Integrating with the Common Event Enabler........................................................................................................... 210
Install CEE for Windows...........................................................................................................................................210
Configure CEE for Windows................................................................................................................................... 210
Configure CEE servers to deliver protocol audit events...................................................................................211
Tracking the delivery of protocol audit events......................................................................................................... 211
View the time stamps of delivery of events to the CEE server and syslog................................................. 211
Move the log position of the CEE forwarder...................................................................................................... 212

Contents 9
 View the rate of delivery of protocol audit events to the CEE server......................................................... 212

Chapter 13: Snapshots............................................................................................................... 213

Snapshots overview........................................................................................................................................................ 213
Data protection with SnapshotIQ................................................................................................................................ 213
Snapshot disk-space usage...........................................................................................................................................214
Snapshot schedules........................................................................................................................................................ 214
Snapshot aliases...............................................................................................................................................................214
File and directory restoration........................................................................................................................................215
Best practices for creating snapshots....................................................................................................................... 215
Best practices for creating snapshot schedules......................................................................................................215
File clones.......................................................................................................................................................................... 216
Shadow-store considerations................................................................................................................................. 217
Snapshot locks..................................................................................................................................................................217
Snapshot reserve............................................................................................................................................................. 217
Writable snapshots..........................................................................................................................................................218
SnapshotIQ license functionality..................................................................................................................................218
Creating snapshots with SnapshotIQ......................................................................................................................... 219
Create a SnapRevert domain.................................................................................................................................. 219
Create a snapshot schedule.................................................................................................................................... 219
Create a snapshot.....................................................................................................................................................220
Snapshot naming patterns......................................................................................................................................220
Managing snapshots ..................................................................................................................................................... 223
Reducing snapshot disk-space usage.................................................................................................................. 223
Delete snapshots.......................................................................................................................................................223
Modify snapshot attributes.....................................................................................................................................224
Assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot..................................................................................................................224
View snapshots..........................................................................................................................................................224
Snapshot information............................................................................................................................................... 224
Restoring snapshot data............................................................................................................................................... 225
Revert a snapshot.....................................................................................................................................................225
Restore a file or directory using Windows Explorer......................................................................................... 225
Restore a file or directory through a UNIX command line.............................................................................. 226
Clone a file from a snapshot...................................................................................................................................226
Managing snapshot schedules.....................................................................................................................................226
Modify a snapshot schedule...................................................................................................................................226
Delete a snapshot schedule.................................................................................................................................... 227
View snapshot schedules........................................................................................................................................ 227
Managing snapshot aliases........................................................................................................................................... 227
Configure a snapshot alias for a snapshot schedule.........................................................................................227
Assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot..................................................................................................................227
Reassign a snapshot alias to the live file system...............................................................................................228
View snapshot aliases.............................................................................................................................................. 228
Snapshot alias information......................................................................................................................................228
Managing with snapshot locks.....................................................................................................................................228
Create a snapshot lock............................................................................................................................................ 229
Modify a snapshot lock expiration date...............................................................................................................229
Delete a snapshot lock.............................................................................................................................................230
Snapshot lock information...................................................................................................................................... 230
Configure SnapshotIQ settings................................................................................................................................... 230

10 Contents
 SnapshotIQ settings................................................................................................................................................. 230
Set the snapshot reserve.............................................................................................................................................. 231
Managing changelists.....................................................................................................................................................232
Create a changelist................................................................................................................................................... 232
Delete a changelist....................................................................................................................................................232
View a changelist...................................................................................................................................................... 232
Changelist information............................................................................................................................................. 232

Chapter 14: Deduplication with SmartDedupe............................................................................ 234

Deduplication overview..................................................................................................................................................234
Deduplication jobs........................................................................................................................................................... 234
Data replication and backup with deduplication......................................................................................................235
Snapshots with deduplication...................................................................................................................................... 235
Deduplication considerations....................................................................................................................................... 236
Shadow-store considerations...................................................................................................................................... 236
SmartDedupe license functionality............................................................................................................................. 236
Managing deduplication................................................................................................................................................. 237
Assess deduplication space savings......................................................................................................................237
Specify deduplication settings............................................................................................................................... 237
Start or schedule a deduplication job................................................................................................................... 237
View deduplication space savings......................................................................................................................... 238
View a deduplication report.................................................................................................................................... 238
Deduplication job report information.................................................................................................................... 238
Deduplication information....................................................................................................................................... 239

Chapter 15: Data replication with SyncIQ.................................................................................. 240

SyncIQ data replication overview............................................................................................................................... 240
Replication policies and jobs.........................................................................................................................................240
SmartLock considerations for SyncIQ.................................................................................................................. 241
Automated replication policies................................................................................................................................241
Source and target cluster association..................................................................................................................242
Configuring SyncIQ source and target clusters with NAT.............................................................................. 243
Full and differential replication...............................................................................................................................243
Controlling replication job resource consumption............................................................................................. 244
Replication policy priority........................................................................................................................................ 244
Replication reports....................................................................................................................................................244
Replication snapshots.................................................................................................................................................... 245
Source cluster snapshots........................................................................................................................................245
Target cluster snapshots........................................................................................................................................ 245
Data failover and failback with SyncIQ......................................................................................................................245
Data failover............................................................................................................................................................... 246
Data failback...............................................................................................................................................................246
SmartLock compliance mode failover and failback........................................................................................... 247
SmartLock replication limitations.......................................................................................................................... 247
Recovery times and objectives for SyncIQ...............................................................................................................248
RPO Alerts.................................................................................................................................................................. 248
Replication policy priority.............................................................................................................................................. 248
SyncIQ license functionality......................................................................................................................................... 249
Replication for nodes with multiple interfaces........................................................................................................ 249

Contents 11
 Restrict SyncIQ source nodes..................................................................................................................................... 249
Creating replication policies......................................................................................................................................... 249
Excluding directories in replication....................................................................................................................... 249
Excluding files in replication................................................................................................................................... 250
File criteria options.................................................................................................................................................... 251
Configure default replication policy settings...................................................................................................... 252
Create a replication policy.......................................................................................................................................253
Assess a replication policy.......................................................................................................................................257
Set RPO alerts for SyncIQ policy.......................................................................................................................... 258
Managing replication to remote clusters...................................................................................................................258
Start a replication job...............................................................................................................................................258
Pause a replication job............................................................................................................................................. 258
Resume a replication job......................................................................................................................................... 259
Cancel a replication job............................................................................................................................................259
View active replication jobs.................................................................................................................................... 259
Replication job information..................................................................................................................................... 259
Initiating data failover and failback with SyncIQ..................................................................................................... 260
Fail over data to a secondary cluster................................................................................................................... 260
Revert a failover operation..................................................................................................................................... 260
Fail back data to a primary cluster........................................................................................................................ 261
Run the ComplianceStoreDelete job in a Smartlock compliance mode domain..........................................261
Performing disaster recovery for older SmartLock directories........................................................................... 262
Recover SmartLock compliance directories on a target cluster................................................................... 262
Migrate SmartLock compliance directories........................................................................................................ 263
Managing replication policies....................................................................................................................................... 263
Modify a replication policy...................................................................................................................................... 263
Delete a replication policy....................................................................................................................................... 264
Enable or disable a replication policy....................................................................................................................264
View replication policies.......................................................................................................................................... 264
Replication policy information................................................................................................................................ 265
Replication policy settings...................................................................................................................................... 265
Managing replication to the local cluster.................................................................................................................. 267
Cancel replication to the local cluster.................................................................................................................. 267
Break local target association................................................................................................................................ 267
View replication policies targeting the local cluster..........................................................................................267
Remote replication policy information..................................................................................................................268
Managing replication performance rules................................................................................................................... 268
Create a network traffic rule..................................................................................................................................268
Create a file operations rule................................................................................................................................... 268
Modify a performance rule..................................................................................................................................... 269
Delete a performance rule...................................................................................................................................... 269
Enable or disable a performance rule................................................................................................................... 269
View performance rules...........................................................................................................................................269
Managing replication reports........................................................................................................................................270
Configure default replication report settings..................................................................................................... 270
Delete replication reports........................................................................................................................................270
View replication reports...........................................................................................................................................270
Replication report information................................................................................................................................ 271
Managing failed replication jobs................................................................................................................................... 271
Resolve a replication policy.....................................................................................................................................272

12 Contents
 Reset a replication policy.........................................................................................................................................272
Perform a full or differential replication...............................................................................................................272

Chapter 16: Data Encryption with SyncIQ.................................................................................. 274

SyncIQ data encryption overview............................................................................................................................... 274
SyncIQ traffic encryption..............................................................................................................................................274
Per-policy throttling overview..................................................................................................................................... 275
SyncIQ encrypted connection......................................................................................................................................275
Activate SyncIQ license........................................................................................................................................... 275
Enable SyncIQ encryption....................................................................................................................................... 275
Manage certificates for target clusters.....................................................................................................................275
Add target cluster certificate.................................................................................................................................275
View target cluster certificate............................................................................................................................... 276
Modify target cluster certificate........................................................................................................................... 276
Delete target cluster certificate............................................................................................................................ 277
Manage certificates for source clusters....................................................................................................................277
Add source cluster certificate................................................................................................................................ 277
View source cluster certificate.............................................................................................................................. 277
Modify source cluster certificate.......................................................................................................................... 278
Delete source cluster certificate........................................................................................................................... 278
Manage SyncIQ policies with encryption enabled...................................................................................................279
Create SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled.................................................................................................. 279
View SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled......................................................................................................279
Modify SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled..................................................................................................279
Delete SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled...................................................................................................280

Chapter 17: Data Transfer with Datamover (SmartSync)............................................................ 281

Dell PowerScale Datamover (SmartSync) overview...............................................................................................281

Chapter 18: Data layout with FlexProtect...................................................................................284

FlexProtect overview.....................................................................................................................................................284
File striping....................................................................................................................................................................... 284
Requested data protection........................................................................................................................................... 284
FlexProtect data recovery............................................................................................................................................285
Smartfail...................................................................................................................................................................... 285
Node failures.............................................................................................................................................................. 285
Requesting data protection..........................................................................................................................................286
Requested protection settings.................................................................................................................................... 286
Requested protection disk space usage....................................................................................................................287

Chapter 19: Large file size support............................................................................................ 289

Large file support............................................................................................................................................................289
Feature enablement requirements..............................................................................................................................289
Restrictions after enabling large file support........................................................................................................... 289

Chapter 20: NDMP backup and recovery.................................................................................... 291

NDMP backup and recovery overview....................................................................................................................... 291
NDMP two-way backup................................................................................................................................................ 292
NDMP three-way backup............................................................................................................................................. 292

Contents 13
 Support for NDMP sessions on Generation 6 hardware....................................................................................... 292
Setting preferred IPs for NDMP three-way operations........................................................................................ 292
NDMP multi-stream backup and recovery............................................................................................................... 293
Snapshot-based incremental backups....................................................................................................................... 293
NDMP backup and restore of SmartLink files......................................................................................................... 294
NDMP protocol support................................................................................................................................................ 295
Supported DMAs.............................................................................................................................................................295
NDMP hardware support.............................................................................................................................................. 295
NDMP backup limitations..............................................................................................................................................296
NDMP performance recommendations..................................................................................................................... 296
Excluding files and directories from NDMP backups............................................................................................. 297
Configuring basic NDMP backup settings................................................................................................................ 298
Configure and enable NDMP backup................................................................................................................... 298
View NDMP backup settings..................................................................................................................................298
Disable NDMP backup............................................................................................................................................. 298
Managing NDMP user accounts..................................................................................................................................298
Create an NDMP administrator account............................................................................................................. 298
View NDMP user accounts.....................................................................................................................................299
Modify the password of an NDMP administrator account............................................................................. 299
Delete an NDMP administrator account..............................................................................................................299
NDMP environment variables overview.................................................................................................................... 299
Managing NDMP environment variables............................................................................................................. 299
NDMP environment variable settings.................................................................................................................. 300
Add an NDMP environment variable.................................................................................................................... 300
View NDMP environment variables....................................................................................................................... 301
Edit an NDMP environment variable..................................................................................................................... 301
Delete an NDMP environment variable................................................................................................................ 301
NDMP environment variables................................................................................................................................. 301
Setting environment variables for backup and restore operations...............................................................305
Managing NDMP contexts........................................................................................................................................... 306
NDMP context settings...........................................................................................................................................306
View NDMP contexts...............................................................................................................................................306
Delete an NDMP context........................................................................................................................................ 306
Managing NDMP sessions............................................................................................................................................ 307
NDMP session information..................................................................................................................................... 307
View NDMP sessions............................................................................................................................................... 309
Abort an NDMP session.......................................................................................................................................... 309
Managing NDMP Fibre Channel ports....................................................................................................................... 309
NDMP backup port settings...................................................................................................................................309
Enable or disable an NDMP backup port............................................................................................................. 310
View NDMP backup ports....................................................................................................................................... 310
Modify NDMP backup port settings..................................................................................................................... 310
Managing NDMP preferred IP settings.......................................................................................................................311
Create an NDMP preferred IP setting...................................................................................................................311
Modify an NDMP preferred IP setting...................................................................................................................311
List NDMP preferred IP settings............................................................................................................................ 311
View NDMP preferred IP settings.......................................................................................................................... 311
Delete NDMP preferred IP settings...................................................................................................................... 312
Managing NDMP backup devices................................................................................................................................ 312
NDMP backup device settings............................................................................................................................... 312

14 Contents
 Detect NDMP backup devices................................................................................................................................313
View NDMP backup devices................................................................................................................................... 313
Modify the name of an NDMP backup device.................................................................................................... 313
Delete an entry for an NDMP backup device..................................................................................................... 313
NDMP dumpdates file overview...................................................................................................................................314
Managing the NDMP dumpdates file.................................................................................................................... 314
NDMP dumpdates file settings...............................................................................................................................314
View entries in the NDMP dumpdates file...........................................................................................................314
Delete entries from the NDMP dumpdates file.................................................................................................. 314
NDMP restore operations..............................................................................................................................................315
NDMP parallel restore operation............................................................................................................................315
NDMP serial restore operation............................................................................................................................... 315
Specify a NDMP serial restore operation.............................................................................................................315
Sharing tape drives between clusters........................................................................................................................ 315
Managing snapshot based incremental backups......................................................................................................316
Enable snapshot-based incremental backups for a directory......................................................................... 316
View snapshots for snapshot-based incremental backups..............................................................................316
Delete snapshots for snapshot-based incremental backups...........................................................................316
Managing cluster performance for NDMP sessions................................................................................................316
Enable NDMP Redirector to manage cluster performance............................................................................. 317
Managing CPU usage for NDMP sessions.................................................................................................................317
Enable NDMP Throttler............................................................................................................................................ 317

Chapter 21: File retention with SmartLock................................................................................. 318

SmartLock overview....................................................................................................................................................... 318
Compliance mode............................................................................................................................................................ 318
Enterprise mode...............................................................................................................................................................319
SmartLock directories.................................................................................................................................................... 319
Replication and backup with SmartLock....................................................................................................................319
SmartLock license functionality.................................................................................................................................. 320
SmartLock considerations............................................................................................................................................ 320
Set the compliance clock.............................................................................................................................................. 320
View the compliance clock........................................................................................................................................... 320
Creating a SmartLock directory................................................................................................................................... 321
Retention periods.......................................................................................................................................................321
Autocommit time periods......................................................................................................................................... 321
Create an enterprise directory for a non-empty directory.............................................................................. 321
Create a SmartLock directory................................................................................................................................ 321
Managing SmartLock directories................................................................................................................................ 322
Modify a SmartLock directory............................................................................................................................... 322
Delete a SmartLock directory................................................................................................................................ 322
View SmartLock directory settings...................................................................................................................... 323
SmartLock directory configuration settings....................................................................................................... 323
Managing files in SmartLock directories................................................................................................................... 324
Set a retention period through a UNIX command line..................................................................................... 324
Set a retention period through Windows Powershell.......................................................................................324
Commit a file to a WORM state through a UNIX command line................................................................... 325
Commit a file to a WORM state through Windows Explorer..........................................................................325
Override the retention period for all files in a SmartLock directory............................................................. 325
Delete a file committed to a WORM state ........................................................................................................ 325

Contents 15
 View WORM status of a file................................................................................................................................... 326

Chapter 22: Protection domains................................................................................................ 327

Protection domains overview.......................................................................................................................................327
Protection domain considerations...............................................................................................................................327
Create a protection domain.......................................................................................................................................... 327
Delete a protection domain.......................................................................................................................................... 328

Chapter 23: Data-at-rest-encryption......................................................................................... 329

Data-at-rest encryption overview.............................................................................................................................. 329
Self-encrypting drives....................................................................................................................................................329
Data security on self-encrypting drives.................................................................................................................... 329
Data migrations and upgrades to a cluster with self-encrypting drives............................................................330
Enabling external key management............................................................................................................................ 330
Migrate nodes and SEDs to external key management.........................................................................................330
Chassis and drive states................................................................................................................................................ 331
Smartfailed drive REPLACE state...............................................................................................................................332
Smartfailed drive ERASE state.................................................................................................................................... 333

Chapter 24: S3 Support............................................................................................................. 334

S3 .......................................................................................................................................................................................334
S3 concepts................................................................................................................................................................334
Server Configuration...................................................................................................................................................... 334
Global S3 settings..................................................................................................................................................... 335
S3 zone settings........................................................................................................................................................336
Certificates................................................................................................................................................................. 337
Bucket handling .............................................................................................................................................................. 337
Managing buckets..................................................................................................................................................... 337
Object handling .............................................................................................................................................................. 339
Object key................................................................................................................................................................... 339
Object Metadata....................................................................................................................................................... 339
Multipart upload........................................................................................................................................................ 339
Etag.............................................................................................................................................................................. 340
PUT object..................................................................................................................................................................340
Cross protocol locking............................................................................................................................................. 340
Authentication................................................................................................................................................................. 340
Access keys................................................................................................................................................................ 340
Access control............................................................................................................................................................ 341
Anonymous authentication..................................................................................................................................... 344
Access key management...............................................................................................................................................344
Managing keys........................................................................................................................................................... 344

Chapter 25: SmartQuotas.......................................................................................................... 347

SmartQuotas overview.................................................................................................................................................. 347
Quota types...................................................................................................................................................................... 347
Default quota type.......................................................................................................................................................... 348
Usage accounting and limits.........................................................................................................................................349
Disk-usage calculations................................................................................................................................................. 350
Quota notifications..........................................................................................................................................................351

16 Contents
 Quota notification rules..................................................................................................................................................351
Quota reports...................................................................................................................................................................352
Creating quotas............................................................................................................................................................... 352
Create an accounting quota................................................................................................................................... 352
Create an enforcement quota................................................................................................................................353
Managing quotas.............................................................................................................................................................353
Search for quotas..................................................................................................................................................... 354
Manage quotas.......................................................................................................................................................... 354
Export a quota configuration file...........................................................................................................................354
Import a quota configuration file...........................................................................................................................355
Managing quota notifications...................................................................................................................................... 355
Configure default quota notification settings.................................................................................................... 355
Configure custom quota notification rules......................................................................................................... 356
Map an email notification rule for a quota.......................................................................................................... 356
Email quota notification messages............................................................................................................................. 356
Custom email notification template variable descriptions...............................................................................358
Customize email quota notification templates...................................................................................................358
Managing quota reports................................................................................................................................................ 359
Create a quota report schedule.............................................................................................................................359
Generate a quota report..........................................................................................................................................359
Locate a quota report.............................................................................................................................................. 359
Basic quota settings.......................................................................................................................................................360
Advisory limit quota notification rules settings........................................................................................................360
Soft limit quota notification rules settings................................................................................................................ 361
Hard limit quota notification rules settings...............................................................................................................363
Limit notification settings............................................................................................................................................. 363
Quota report settings.................................................................................................................................................... 364

Chapter 26: Storage Pools.........................................................................................................365

Storage pools overview.................................................................................................................................................365
Storage pool functions.................................................................................................................................................. 366
Autoprovisioning..............................................................................................................................................................367
Node pools........................................................................................................................................................................ 367
Compatibilities............................................................................................................................................................367
Compatibility restrictions........................................................................................................................................ 369
Manual node pools.................................................................................................................................................... 369
Virtual hot spare..............................................................................................................................................................369
Spillover............................................................................................................................................................................. 370
Suggested protection.................................................................................................................................................... 370
Protection policies.......................................................................................................................................................... 370
SSD strategies.................................................................................................................................................................. 371
Other SSD mirror settings............................................................................................................................................ 372
Global namespace acceleration....................................................................................................................................372
L3 cache overview.......................................................................................................................................................... 372
Migration to L3 cache.............................................................................................................................................. 373
L3 cache on archive-class node pools................................................................................................................. 373
Tiers....................................................................................................................................................................................374
File pool policies...............................................................................................................................................................374
FilePolicy job............................................................................................................................................................... 374
Managing node pools in the web administration interface................................................................................... 375

Contents 17
 Add node pools to a tier.......................................................................................................................................... 375
Change the name or requested protection of a node pool............................................................................. 375
Create a node class compatibility..........................................................................................................................375
Merge compatible node pools................................................................................................................................ 376
Delete a node class compatibility.......................................................................................................................... 376
Create an SSD compatibility................................................................................................................................... 377
Delete an SSD compatibility....................................................................................................................................377
Managing L3 cache from the web administration interface.................................................................................378
Set L3 cache as the default for node pools........................................................................................................378
Set L3 cache on a specific node pool...................................................................................................................378
Restore SSDs to storage drives for a node pool............................................................................................... 378
Managing tiers................................................................................................................................................................. 379
Create a tier................................................................................................................................................................379
Edit a tier.....................................................................................................................................................................379
Delete a tier................................................................................................................................................................ 379
Creating file pool policies.............................................................................................................................................. 380
Create a file pool policy........................................................................................................................................... 380
File-matching options for file pool policies.......................................................................................................... 381
Valid wildcard characters........................................................................................................................................ 382
SmartPools settings................................................................................................................................................. 382
Managing file pool policies............................................................................................................................................ 385
Configure default file pool protection settings.................................................................................................. 385
Default file pool requested protection settings................................................................................................. 385
Configure default I/O optimization settings.......................................................................................................387
Default file pool I/O optimization settings.......................................................................................................... 387
Modify a file pool policy........................................................................................................................................... 387
Prioritize a file pool policy....................................................................................................................................... 388
Create a file pool policy from a template............................................................................................................ 388
Delete a file pool policy............................................................................................................................................ 388
Monitoring storage pools.............................................................................................................................................. 388
Monitor storage pools.............................................................................................................................................. 389
View subpools health................................................................................................................................................389
View the results of a SmartPools job................................................................................................................... 389

Chapter 27: Pool-based tree reporting in FSAnalyze (FSA)........................................................390

FSAnalyze (FSA).............................................................................................................................................................390
Pool-based tree reporting in FSAnalyze (FSA)....................................................................................................... 390

Chapter 28: System jobs............................................................................................................ 391

System jobs overview.....................................................................................................................................................391
System jobs library..........................................................................................................................................................392
Job operation................................................................................................................................................................... 395
Job performance impact............................................................................................................................................... 396
Job priorities.....................................................................................................................................................................397
Managing system jobs....................................................................................................................................................397
View active jobs.........................................................................................................................................................397
View job history......................................................................................................................................................... 397
Start a job................................................................................................................................................................... 398
Pause a job..................................................................................................................................................................398

18 Contents
 Resume a job.............................................................................................................................................................. 398
Cancel a job................................................................................................................................................................ 398
Update a job............................................................................................................................................................... 399
Modify job type settings..........................................................................................................................................399
Managing impact policies..............................................................................................................................................399
Create an impact policy...........................................................................................................................................400
Copy an impact policy..............................................................................................................................................400
Modify an impact policy.......................................................................................................................................... 400
Delete an impact policy............................................................................................................................................ 401
View impact policy settings.....................................................................................................................................401
Viewing job reports and statistics............................................................................................................................... 401
View statistics for a job in progress..................................................................................................................... 402
View a report for a completed job........................................................................................................................ 402

Chapter 29: Networking............................................................................................................ 403

Networking overview..................................................................................................................................................... 403
About the internal network...........................................................................................................................................403
Internal IP address ranges.......................................................................................................................................404
Internal network failover......................................................................................................................................... 404
About the external network......................................................................................................................................... 404
IPv6 support...............................................................................................................................................................405
Groupnets................................................................................................................................................................... 406
Subnets....................................................................................................................................................................... 406
IP address pools.........................................................................................................................................................407
SmartConnect module............................................................................................................................................. 408
Node provisioning rules............................................................................................................................................ 412
Routing options.......................................................................................................................................................... 412
Host-based firewall....................................................................................................................................................413
Configuring the internal network.................................................................................................................................415
Modify the internal IP address range.................................................................................................................... 416
Modify the internal network netmask...................................................................................................................416
Configure and enable internal failover .................................................................................................................416
Disable internal network failover............................................................................................................................ 417
Managing IPv6.................................................................................................................................................................. 417
Enable and configure IPv6....................................................................................................................................... 417
Enable duplicate address detection (DAD) ........................................................................................................ 418
View IPv6 settings.....................................................................................................................................................418
Managing groupnets....................................................................................................................................................... 419
Create a groupnet......................................................................................................................................................419
Modify a groupnet.................................................................................................................................................... 420
Delete a groupnet..................................................................................................................................................... 420
View groupnets...........................................................................................................................................................421
Managing external network subnets...........................................................................................................................421
Create a subnet..........................................................................................................................................................421
Modify a subnet.........................................................................................................................................................422
Delete a subnet..........................................................................................................................................................423
View subnet settings................................................................................................................................................423
Configure a SmartConnect service IP address..................................................................................................423
Enable or disable VLAN tagging............................................................................................................................ 423
Add or remove an IP address range per subnet................................................................................................ 424

Contents 19
 Managing IP address pools........................................................................................................................................... 424
Create an IP address pool....................................................................................................................................... 424
Modify an IP address pool.......................................................................................................................................424
Delete an IP address pool........................................................................................................................................425
View IP address pool settings................................................................................................................................ 425
Add or remove an IP address range..................................................................................................................... 425
Managing SmartConnect Settings..............................................................................................................................426
Modify a SmartConnect DNS zone...................................................................................................................... 426
Specify a SmartConnect service subnet............................................................................................................. 426
Suspend or resume a node......................................................................................................................................427
Configure IP address allocation............................................................................................................................. 427
Configure a connection balancing policy............................................................................................................. 428
Configure an IP failover policy............................................................................................................................... 429
Configure an IP rebalance policy........................................................................................................................... 429
Managing network interface members......................................................................................................................430
Add or remove a network interface......................................................................................................................430
Configure link aggregation.......................................................................................................................................431
Managing node provisioning rules...............................................................................................................................432
Create a node provisioning rule............................................................................................................................. 432
Modify a node provisioning rule.............................................................................................................................433
Delete a node provisioning rule..............................................................................................................................433
View node provisioning rule settings.................................................................................................................... 433
Managing routing options............................................................................................................................................. 434
Enable or disable source-based routing...............................................................................................................434
Add or remove a static route................................................................................................................................. 434
Managing DNS cache settings.....................................................................................................................................434
Flush the DNS cache................................................................................................................................................434
Modify DNS cache settings....................................................................................................................................435
DNS cache settings.................................................................................................................................................. 435
Managing host-based firewalls....................................................................................................................................435
Modify the OneFS firewall service .......................................................................................................................436
Create a firewall policy............................................................................................................................................ 436
View a firewall policy................................................................................................................................................ 436
Create a firewall rule................................................................................................................................................ 436
View a firewall rule....................................................................................................................................................436
Modify a firewall rule................................................................................................................................................ 437
Delete a firewall rule................................................................................................................................................. 437
Clone a firewall policy...............................................................................................................................................437
Delete a firewall policy............................................................................................................................................. 437
Associate a network subnet or pool to a firewall policy...................................................................................437
Reset the global default firewall policies............................................................................................................. 437
Managing TCP ports...................................................................................................................................................... 438
Add or remove TCP ports....................................................................................................................................... 438

Chapter 30: NFS3oRDMA.......................................................................................................... 439

RDMA support for NFSoRDMA...................................................................................................................................439
Enable NFSoRDMA.........................................................................................................................................................439
Disable NFSoRDMA........................................................................................................................................................440
View interface details of a node..................................................................................................................................440
View IP address pool details.........................................................................................................................................440

20 Contents
 Create an IP address pool with NFSoRDMA capabilities...................................................................................... 440
Modify an existing IP address pool..............................................................................................................................441

Chapter 31: Smart QoS.............................................................................................................. 442

Smart QoS........................................................................................................................................................................ 442
Workload monitoring...................................................................................................................................................... 442
Create a standard dataset............................................................................................................................................ 442
View datasets.............................................................................................................................................................443
Modify details of dataset.........................................................................................................................................443
Delete dataset ...........................................................................................................................................................443
Pin a workload..................................................................................................................................................................443
View a pinned workload........................................................................................................................................... 443
Unpin a workload.......................................................................................................................................................443
Throttle a workload........................................................................................................................................................ 444
Modify a workload throttle..................................................................................................................................... 444
Remove a workload throttle................................................................................................................................... 444
Additional information.................................................................................................................................................... 444

Chapter 32: Antivirus................................................................................................................ 445

Antivirus overview.......................................................................................................................................................... 445
On-access scanning....................................................................................................................................................... 445
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning.................................................................................................................................... 446
Individual file scanning using ICAP..............................................................................................................................446
WORM files and antivirus............................................................................................................................................. 446
Antivirus scan reports.................................................................................................................................................... 447
ICAP servers.....................................................................................................................................................................447
CAVA servers...................................................................................................................................................................448
ICAP threat responses...................................................................................................................................................448
CAVA threat responses................................................................................................................................................. 449
Configuring global antivirus settings.......................................................................................................................... 449
Exclude files from antivirus scans.........................................................................................................................449
Configure on-access scanning settings...............................................................................................................450
Configure antivirus threat response settings.....................................................................................................450
Configure antivirus report retention settings.................................................................................................... 450
Enable or disable antivirus scanning.....................................................................................................................450
Managing ICAP servers..................................................................................................................................................451
Add and connect to an ICAP server......................................................................................................................451
Test an ICAP server connection............................................................................................................................ 451
Modify ICAP connection settings.......................................................................................................................... 451
Temporarily disconnect from an ICAP server.................................................................................................... 452
Reconnect to an ICAP server................................................................................................................................ 452
Remove an ICAP server...........................................................................................................................................452
Managing CAVA servers............................................................................................................................................... 452
Add and connect to a CAVA server......................................................................................................................453
List or view CAVA servers ..................................................................................................................................... 453
Modify CAVA connection settings........................................................................................................................453
Disable connection to a CAVA server ................................................................................................................. 453
Delete connection to a CAVA server .................................................................................................................. 453
Add a job to a CAVA server....................................................................................................................................453

Contents 21
 View an IP pool in a CAVA server......................................................................................................................... 454
Create an Active Directory authentication provider for the AvVendor access zone............................... 454
Update the role in the access zone...................................................................................................................... 454
Scan CloudPool files in a CAVA server................................................................................................................ 454
Create an antivirus policy..............................................................................................................................................454
Managing ICAP antivirus policies................................................................................................................................ 455
Modify an antivirus policy....................................................................................................................................... 455
Delete an antivirus policy........................................................................................................................................ 455
Enable or disable an antivirus policy.....................................................................................................................456
View antivirus policies..............................................................................................................................................456
Managing antivirus scans..............................................................................................................................................456
Scan a file................................................................................................................................................................... 456
Manually run an ICAP antivirus policy.................................................................................................................. 456
Stop a running antivirus scan.................................................................................................................................456
Managing antivirus threats........................................................................................................................................... 457
Manually quarantine a file........................................................................................................................................457
Rescan a file............................................................................................................................................................... 457
Remove a file from quarantine...............................................................................................................................457
Manually truncate a file........................................................................................................................................... 457
View threats............................................................................................................................................................... 458
Antivirus threat information................................................................................................................................... 458
Managing antivirus reports...........................................................................................................................................458
View antivirus reports.............................................................................................................................................. 458
View antivirus events............................................................................................................................................... 458

Chapter 33: File System Explorer.............................................................................................. 460

File System Explorer overview.................................................................................................................................... 460
Browse the file system.................................................................................................................................................. 460
Create a directory...........................................................................................................................................................460
Modify file and directory properties............................................................................................................................461
View file and directory properties................................................................................................................................461
File and directory properties......................................................................................................................................... 461

22 Contents
 1
Introduction to this guide
Topics:
• About this guide
• Scale-out NAS overview
• Where to get help

About this guide

This guide describes how the PowerScale OneFS web administration interface provides access to cluster configuration,
management, and monitoring functionality. For information about APEX File Storage Services, see the Dell Technologies APEX
File Storage Services Administration Guide.

Scale-out NAS overview

The scale-out NAS storage platform combines modular hardware with unified software to harness unstructured data. The
OneFS operating system powers the platform to deliver a scalable pool of storage with a global namespace.
The unified software platform supports centralized administration through OneFS and through Dell Technologies APEX File
Storage Services (File Services). OneFS administrators and Dell Technologies APEX File Storage Services administrators
manage:
● A cluster that runs a distributed file system
● Scale-out nodes that add capacity and performance
● Storage options that manage files and tiering
● Flexible data protection and high availability
● Software modules that control costs and optimize resources.
If you are a File Services storage administrator or application owner, you request services through your Dell Technologies
APEX File Storage Services service provider. As a File Services storage administrator or application owner, you can perform
self-service cluster data management tasks such as:
● Managing folders and the file hierarchy structure
● Monitoring SMB shares, NFS exports, and HDFS access
● Managing storage pools policies
● Monitoring quotas
● Monitoring snapshots
● Viewing reports
● Managing users
See the PowerScale APEX File Storage Services Administration Guide for details.

Where to get help

The Dell Technologies Support site contains important information about products and services including drivers, installation
packages, product documentation, knowledge base articles, and advisories.
A valid support contract and account might be required to access all the available information about a specific Dell Technologies
product or service.

Introduction to this guide 23

Additional options for getting help
This section contains resources for getting answers to questions about PowerScale products.

Dell Technologies Support ● https://www.dell.com/support/incidents-online/contactus/product/isilon-

onefs
Telephone support ● United States: 1-800-SVC-4EMC (1-800-782-4362)
● Canada: 1-800-543-4782
● Worldwide: 1-312-725-5401
● Local phone numbers for a specific country or region are available at https://
www.dell.com/support/incidents-online/contactus/product/isilon-onefs.
PowerScale OneFS Documentation Info ● https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/000152189/powerscale-onefs-info-hubs
Hubs
Dell Community Board for self-help ● https://www.dell.com/community

24 Introduction to this guide

 2
PowerScale scale-out NAS
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• OneFS storage architecture
• Node components
• Internal and external networks
• PowerScale cluster
• The OneFS operating system
• Structure of the file system
• Data protection overview
• Data compression
• Software modules

OneFS storage architecture

PowerScale takes a scale-out approach to storage by creating a cluster of nodes that runs a distributed file system. OneFS
combines the three layers of storage architecture—file system, volume manager, and data protection—into a scale-out NAS
cluster.
Each node adds resources to the cluster. Because each node contains globally coherent RAM, as a cluster becomes larger,
it becomes faster. Meanwhile, the file system expands dynamically and redistributes content, which eliminates the work of
partitioning disks and creating volumes.
Nodes work as peers to spread data across the cluster. Striping—the process of segmenting and distributing data—protects
data. Striping also enables users connecting to any node to take advantage of the performance of the entire cluster.
OneFS uses distributed software to scale data across commodity hardware. Primary devices do not control the cluster, and
secondary devices do not invoke dependencies. Each node helps to control data requests, boost performance, and expand
cluster capacity.

Node components
As a rack-mountable appliance, a pre-Generation 6 storage node includes the following components in a 2U or 4U rack-
mountable chassis with an LCD front panel: CPUs, RAM, NVRAM, network interfaces, InfiniBand adapters, disk controllers,
and storage media. A PowerScale cluster is made up of three or more nodes, up to 252. The 4U chassis is always used for
Generation 6. There are four nodes in one 4U chassis in Generation 6; therefore, a quarter chassis makes up one node.
When you add a node to a pre-Generation 6 cluster, you increase the aggregate disk, cache, CPU, RAM, and network capacity.
OneFS groups RAM into a single coherent cache so that a data request on a node benefits from data that is cached anywhere.
NVRAM is grouped to write data with high throughput and to protect write operations from power failures. As the cluster
expands, spindles and CPU combine to increase throughput, capacity, and input-output operations per second (IOPS). The
minimum cluster for Generation 6 is four nodes and Generation 6 does not use NVRAM. Journals are stored in RAM and M.2
flash is used for a backup in case of node failure.
The PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes are 1U models that require a minimum cluster size of three nodes. PowerScale F900
nodes are 2U models that require a minimum cluster size of three nodes. Clusters can be expanded to a maximum of 252 nodes
in single node increments.
There are several types of nodes, all of which can be added to a cluster to balance capacity and performance with throughput or
IOPS:

PowerScale scale-out NAS 25

Node Use Case
PowerScale F200 (The F200 is supported with OneFS 9.0.0.0 All-flash solution, software inline data compression, and data
and later releases only) deduplication.
PowerScale F600 (The F600 is supported with OneFS 9.0.0.0 All-flash solution, software inline data compression, and data
and later releases only) deduplication.
Isilon F800 and F810 (The F810 is supported with OneFS 8.1.3 All-flash solution, fast data access using direct-attached
and with OneFS 8.2.1 and later releases only) NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SSDs with integrated
parallelism.
PowerScale F900, supported with OneFS 9.2.1.0 and later
releases only. Hardware data compression and data deduplication on the
F810.
Software inline data compression and data deduplication on
the F900.

Isilon Hardware H-Series ● H600, performance spinning solution

● H500, performance capacity
● H400, capacity performance
● H5600, large capacity in a performance node, data
compression: requires PowerScale 8.2.2 and later releases
for in-line compression and in-line deduplication support)
PowerScale Hardware H-series, supported with OneFS 9.2.1.0 ● H700, performance solution, support for inline software
and later releases only. data compression and data deduplication
● H7000, performance solution, support for inline software
data compression and data deduplication
Isilon Hardware A-Series ● A200, active archive
● A2000, deep archive
PowerScale Hardware A-Series, supported with OneFS 9.2.1.0 ● A300, active archive
and later releases only ● A3000, deep archive
S-Series IOPS-intensive applications
X-Series High-concurrency and throughput-driven workflows
NL-Series Near-primary accessibility, with near-tape value
HD-Series Maximum capacity

The following Dell Technologies PowerScale nodes improve performance:

Node Function
A-Series Performance Accelerator Independent scaling for high performance
A-Series Backup Accelerator High-speed and scalable backup-and-restore solution for tape
drives over Fibre Channel connections

Internal and external networks

A cluster includes two networks: an internal network to exchange data between nodes and an external network to handle client
connections.
Nodes exchange data through the internal network with a proprietary, unicast protocol over InfiniBand or Ethernet, depending
on the node model. Each node includes redundant InfiniBand or Ethernet ports for a second internal network in case the first
port fails. Ethernet is the only supported external network.
Supported network configurations are as follows:
● Generation 5 nodes support only InfiniBand for the internal network.
● PowerScale nodes support 10 GB and 40 GB Ethernet, with 25 GB Ethernet as a later add-on option.
● PowerScale F200 supports 10 GB and 40 GB Ethernet and InfiniBand.
● PowerScale F600 supports 10, 25, 40, and 100 GB Ethernet, and 10, and 40 GB InfiniBand.

26 PowerScale scale-out NAS

PowerScale, and PowerScale nodes support InfiniBand and Ethernet for the internal network. You can mix Generation 5,
PowerScale, and PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes in the same cluster. PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes support only an
Ethernet internal network.
NOTE: Ethernet is recommended for the internal network. However PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes do support
InfiniBand options for existing InfiniBand clusters.
Clients reach the cluster using Ethernet. Since every node includes Ethernet ports, the cluster bandwidth scales with
performance and capacity as nodes are added.
CAUTION: Only Isilon or PowerScale nodes should be connected to the internal network, depending on the node
model. Information that is exchanged on the back-end network is not encrypted. Connecting anything other
than Isilon or PowerScale nodes to the internal network creates a security risk.

PowerScale cluster
OneFS and APEX File Storage Services administrators perform cluster management tasks.
A PowerScale cluster consists of three or more hardware nodes, up to 252. Each node runs the PowerScale OneFS operating
system, the distributed file-system software that unites the nodes into a cluster. The storage capacity of a cluster ranges from a
minimum of 11 TB raw with three PowerScale F200 nodes to more than 50 PB.

Cluster administration
OneFS centralizes cluster management through a web administration interface and a command-line interface. Both interfaces
provide methods to activate licenses, check the status of nodes, configure the cluster, upgrade the system, generate alerts,
view client connections, track performance, and change various settings.
In addition, OneFS simplifies administration by automating maintenance with a Job Engine. OneFS and APEX File Storage
Services administrators can schedule jobs that scan for viruses, inspect disks for errors, reclaim disk space, and check the
integrity of the file system. The engine manages the jobs to minimize impact on the performance of the cluster.
OneFS and APEX File Storage Services administrators can monitor hardware components, CPU usage, switches, and network
interfaces remotely using SNMP versions 2c and 3. Dell Technologies PowerScale supplies management information bases
(MIBs) and traps for the OneFS operating system.
OneFS also includes an application programming interface (API) that is divided into two functional areas: One area enables
cluster configuration, management, and monitoring functionality, and the other area enables operations on files and directories
on the cluster. You can send requests to the OneFS API through a Representational State Transfer (REST) interface, which
is accessed through resource URIs and standard HTTP methods. The API integrates with OneFS role-based access control
(RBAC) to increase security. See the PowerScale API Reference.

Quorum
A PowerScale cluster must have a quorum to work correctly. A quorum prevents data conflicts—for example, conflicting
versions of the same file—in case two groups of nodes become unsynchronized. If a cluster loses its quorum for read and write
requests, you cannot access the OneFS file system.
For a quorum, more than half the nodes must be available over the internal network. A seven-node cluster, for example, requires
a four-node quorum. A 10-node cluster requires a six-node quorum. If a node is unreachable over the internal network, OneFS
separates the node from the cluster, an action referred to as splitting. After a cluster is split, cluster operations continue as long
as enough nodes remain connected to have a quorum.
In a split cluster, the nodes that remain in the cluster are referred to as the majority group. Nodes that are split from the cluster
are referred to as the minority group.
When split nodes can reconnect with the cluster and re-synchronize with the other nodes, the nodes rejoin the cluster's majority
group, an action referred to as merging.
A OneFS cluster contains two quorum properties:
● read quorum (efs.gmp.has_quorum)
● write quorum (efs.gmp.has_super_block_quorum)

PowerScale scale-out NAS 27

By connecting to a node with SSH and running the sysctl command-line tool as root, you can view the status of both types
of quorum. Here is an example for a cluster that has a quorum for both read and write operations, as the command output
indicates with a 1, for true:

sysctl efs.gmp.has_quorum
efs.gmp.has_quorum: 1
sysctl efs.gmp.has_super_block_quorum
efs.gmp.has_super_block_quorum: 1

The degraded states of nodes—such as smartfail, read-only, offline—effect quorum in different ways. A node in a smartfail or
read-only state affects only write quorum. A node in an offline state, however, affects both read and write quorum. In a cluster,
the combination of nodes in different degraded states determines whether read requests, write requests, or both work.
A cluster can lose write quorum but keep read quorum. Consider a four-node cluster in which nodes 1 and 2 are working
normally. Node 3 is in a read-only state, and node 4 is in a smartfail state. In such a case, read requests to the cluster succeed.
Write requests, however, receive an input-output error because the states of nodes 3 and 4 break the write quorum.
A cluster can also lose both its read and write quorum. If nodes 3 and 4 in a four-node cluster are in an offline state, both write
requests and read requests receive an input-output error, and you cannot access the file system. When OneFS can reconnect
with the nodes, OneFS merges them back into the cluster. Unlike a RAID system, a PowerScale node can rejoin the cluster
without being rebuilt and reconfigured.

Splitting and merging

Splitting and merging optimize the use of nodes without your intervention.
OneFS monitors every node in a cluster. If a node is unreachable over the internal network, OneFS separates the node from
the cluster, an action referred to as splitting. When the cluster can reconnect to the node, OneFS adds the node back into the
cluster, an action referred to as merging.
When a node is split from a cluster, it will continue to capture event information locally. You can connect to a split node
with SSH and run the isi event events list command to view the local event log for the node. The local event log
can help you troubleshoot the connection issue that resulted in the split. When the split node rejoins the cluster, local events
gathered during the split are deleted. You can still view events generated by a split node in the node's event log file located
at /var/log/isi_celog_events.log.
If a cluster splits during a write operation, OneFS might need to reallocate blocks for the file on the side with the quorum, which
leads allocated blocks on the side without a quorum to become orphans. When the split nodes reconnect with the cluster, the
OneFS Collect system job reclaims the orphaned blocks.
Meanwhile, as nodes split and merge with the cluster, the OneFS AutoBalance job redistributes data evenly among the nodes in
the cluster, optimizing protection and conserving space.

Storage pools
Storage pools segment nodes and files into logical divisions to simplify the management and storage of data.
A storage pool comprises node pools and tiers. Node pools group equivalent nodes to protect data and ensure reliability. Tiers
combine node pools to optimize storage by need, such as a frequently used high-speed tier or a rarely accessed archive.
The SmartPools module groups nodes and files into pools. If you do not activate a SmartPools license, the module provisions
node pools and creates one file pool. If you activate the SmartPools license, you receive more features. You can, for example,
create multiple file pools and govern them with policies. The policies move files, directories, and file pools among node pools or
tiers. You can also define how OneFS handles write operations when a node pool or tier is full. SmartPools reserves a virtual hot
spare to reprotect data if a drive fails regardless of whether the SmartPools license is activated.

The OneFS operating system

A distributed operating system based on FreeBSD, OneFS presents a PowerScale cluster's file system as a single share or export
with a central point of administration.
The OneFS operating system does the following:
● Supports common data-access protocols, such as SMB and NFS
● Connects to multiple identity management systems, such as Active Directory and LDAP

28 PowerScale scale-out NAS

● Authenticates users and groups
● Controls access to directories and files

Mixed data-access protocol environments

With the OneFS operating system, you can access data with multiple file-sharing and transfer protocols. As a result, Microsoft
Windows, UNIX, Linux, and macOS X clients can share the same directories and files.
NOTE: On new installations of OneFS 9.0.0.0 and later, all protocols are disabled by default. To enable the protocols that
you plan to use, run the following CLI command:

isi services <protocol> enable

Where <protocol> is one of smb, nfs, hdfs, ftp, http, https, or s3.

OneFS supports the following protocols:

SMB The Server Message Block (SMB) protocol enables Windows users to access the cluster. OneFS works
with SMB 1, SMB 2, and SMB 2.1, and SMB 3.0 for Multichannel only. With SMB 2.1,OneFS supports
client opportunity locks (Oplocks) and large (1 MB) MTU sizes.
NFS The Network File System (NFS) protocol enables UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X systems to remotely mount
any subdirectory, including subdirectories created by Windows users. OneFS works with NFS versions 3
and 4.
HDFS The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) protocol enables a cluster to work with Apache Hadoop, a
framework for data-intensive distributed applications. OneFS supports Ranger ACL. OneFS 9.3.0.0 and
later adds support for HDFS ACL. HDFS integration requires that you activate a separate license.
FTP FTP allows systems with an FTP client to connect to the cluster and exchange files.
HTTP and HTTPS HTTP and its secure variant, HTTPS, give systems browser-based access to resources. OneFS includes
limited support for WebDAV.
S3 The S3-on-OneFS technology enables using the Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3)
protocol with OneFS. S3 support on OneFS enables storing data in the form of objects on top of the
OneFS file system storage.

Identity management and access control

OneFS works with multiple identity management systems to authenticate users and control access to files. OneFS also features
access zones that allow users from different directory services to access different resources based on their IP address.
Meanwhile, role-based access control (RBAC) segments administrative access by role.
OneFS authenticates users with the following identity management systems:
● Microsoft Active Directory (AD)
● Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
● Network Information Service (NIS)
● Local users and local groups
● A file provider for accounts in /etc/spwd.db and /etc/group files
Use the file provider to add an authoritative third-party source of user and group information.

You can manage users with different identity management systems; OneFS maps the accounts so that Windows and UNIX
identities can co-exist. A Windows user account managed in Active Directory, for example, is mapped to a corresponding UNIX
account in NIS or LDAP.
To control access, a PowerScale cluster works with both the access control lists (ACLs) of Windows systems and the POSIX
mode bits of UNIX systems. When OneFS must transform file permissions from ACLs to mode bits or from mode bits to ACLs,
OneFS merges the permissions to maintain consistent security settings.
OneFS presents protocol-specific views of permissions so that NFS exports display mode bits and SMB shares show ACLs. You
can, however, manage not only mode bits but also ACLs with standard UNIX tools, such as the chmod and chown commands.
ACL policies also enable you to configure how OneFS manages permissions for networks that mix Windows and UNIX systems.

PowerScale scale-out NAS 29

Access zones OneFS includes an access zones feature. Access zones allow users from different authentication
providers, such as two untrusted Active Directory domains, to access different OneFS resources based
on an incoming IP address. An access zone can contain multiple authentication providers and SMB
namespaces.
RBAC for OneFS includes role-based access control for administration. In place of a root or administrator account,
administration RBAC lets you manage administrative access by role. A role limits privileges to an area of administration.
For example, you can create separate administrator roles for security, auditing, storage, and backup.

Structure of the file system

OneFS presents all the nodes in a cluster as a global namespace.
In the file system, directories are inode number links. An inode contains file metadata and an inode number, which identifies
location of a file. OneFS dynamically allocates inodes, and there is no limit on the number of inodes.
To distribute data among nodes, OneFS sends messages with a globally routable block address through the internal network of a
cluster. The block address identifies the node and the drive storing the block of data.
NOTE: The design of your data storage structure should be planned carefully. A well-designed directory optimizes cluster
performance and cluster administration.

Data layout
OneFS evenly distributes data among a cluster's nodes with layout algorithms that maximize storage efficiency and
performance. The system continuously reallocates data to conserve space.
OneFS breaks data down into smaller sections called blocks, and then the system places the blocks in a stripe unit. By
referencing either file data or erasure codes, a stripe unit helps safeguard a file from a hardware failure. The size of a stripe unit
depends on the file size, the number of nodes, and the protection setting. After OneFS divides the data into stripe units, OneFS
allocates, or stripes, the stripe units across nodes in the cluster.
When a client connects to a node, the client's read and write operations take place on multiple nodes. For example, when a
client connects to a node and requests a file, the node retrieves the data from multiple nodes and rebuilds the file. You can
optimize how OneFS lays out data to match your dominant access pattern—concurrent, streaming, or random.

Writing files
On a node, the input-output operations of the OneFS software stack split into two functional layers: A top layer, or initiator, and
a bottom layer, or participant. In read and write operations, the initiator and the participant play different roles.
When a client writes a file to a node, the initiator on the node manages the layout of the file on the cluster. First, the initiator
divides the file into blocks of 8 KB each. Second, the initiator places the blocks in one or more stripe units. At 128 KB, a stripe
unit consists of 16 blocks. Third, the initiator spreads the stripe units across the cluster until they span a width of the cluster,
creating a stripe. The width of the stripe depends on the number of nodes and the protection setting.
After dividing a file into stripe units, the initiator writes the data first to non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) and then
to disk. NVRAM retains the information when the power is off.
During the write transaction, NVRAM guards against failed nodes with journaling. If a node fails mid-transaction, the transaction
restarts without the failed node. When the node returns, it replays the journal from NVRAM to finish the transaction. The node
also runs the AutoBalance job to check the file's on-disk striping. Meanwhile, uncommitted writes waiting in the cache are
protected with mirroring. As a result, OneFS eliminates multiple points of failure.

Reading files
In a read operation, a node acts as a manager to gather data from the other nodes and present it to the requesting client.
Because a PowerScale cluster's coherent cache spans all the nodes, OneFS can store different data in each node's RAM. A
node using the internal network can retrieve file data from another node's cache faster than from its own local disk. If a read
operation requests data that is cached on any node, OneFS pulls the cached data to serve it quickly.

30 PowerScale scale-out NAS

For files with an access pattern of concurrent or streaming, OneFS pre-fetches in-demand data into a managing node's local
cache to further improve sequential-read performance.

Metadata layout
OneFS protects metadata by spreading it across nodes and drives.
Metadata—which includes information about where a file is stored, how it is protected, and who can access it—is stored in
inodes and protected with locks in a B+ tree, a standard structure for organizing data blocks in a file system to provide instant
lookups. OneFS replicates file metadata across the cluster so that there is no single point of failure.
Working together as peers, all the nodes help manage metadata access and locking. If a node detects an error in metadata, the
node looks up the metadata in an alternate location and then corrects the error.

Locks and concurrency

OneFS includes a distributed lock manager that orchestrates locks on data across all the nodes in a cluster.
The lock manager grants locks for the file system, byte ranges, and protocols, including SMB share-mode locks and NFS
advisory locks. OneFS also supports SMB opportunistic locks.
Because OneFS distributes the lock manager across all the nodes, any node can act as a lock coordinator. When a thread from
a node requests a lock, the lock manager's hashing algorithm typically assigns the coordinator role to a different node. The
coordinator allocates a shared lock or an exclusive lock, depending on the type of request. A shared lock allows users to share
a file simultaneously, typically for read operations. An exclusive lock allows only one user to access a file, typically for write
operations.

Striping
In a process known as striping, OneFS segments files into units of data and then distributes the units across nodes in a cluster.
Striping protects your data and improves cluster performance.
To distribute a file, OneFS reduces it to blocks of data, arranges the blocks into stripe units, and then allocates the stripe units
to nodes over the internal network.
At the same time, OneFS distributes erasure codes that protect the file. The erasure codes encode the file's data in a
distributed set of symbols, adding space-efficient redundancy. With only a part of the symbol set, OneFS can recover the
original file data.
Taken together, the data and its redundancy form a protection group for a region of file data. OneFS places the protection
groups on different drives on different nodes—creating data stripes.
Because OneFS stripes data across nodes that work together as peers, a user connecting to any node can take advantage of
the entire cluster's performance.
By default, OneFS optimizes striping for concurrent access. If your dominant access pattern is streaming—that is, lower
concurrency, higher single-stream workloads, such as with video—you can change how OneFS lays out data to increase
sequential-read performance. To better handle streaming access, OneFS stripes data across more drives. Streaming is most
effective on clusters or subpools serving large files.

Data protection overview

A PowerScale cluster is designed to serve data even when components fail. By default, OneFS protects data with erasure
codes, enabling you to retrieve files when a node or disk fails. As an alternative to erasure codes, you can protect data with two
to eight mirrors.
When you create a cluster with five or more nodes, erasure codes deliver as much as 80 percent efficiency. On larger clusters,
erasure codes provide as much as four levels of redundancy.
OneFS includes the following features to help protect the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of data:

PowerScale scale-out NAS 31

Feature Description
Anti-virus OneFS can send files to servers running the Internet Content
Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) or Common AntiVirus Agent
(CAVA) to scan for viruses and other threats.
Clones OneFS enables you to create clones that share blocks with
other files to save space.
NDMP backup and restore OneFS can back up data to tape and other devices through
the Network Data Management Protocol. Although OneFS
supports both three-way and two-way backup, two-way
backup requires a PowerScale Backup Accelerator Node.
Protection domains You can apply protection domains to files and directories to
prevent changes.

The following software modules help protect data, but you must activate a separate license to use them:

Licensed Feature Description

SyncIQ SyncIQ replicates data on another PowerScale cluster and
automates failover and failback operations between clusters.
If a cluster becomes unusable, you can fail over to another
PowerScale cluster .
SnapshotIQ You can protect data with a snapshot—a logical copy of data
that is stored on a cluster.
SmartLock The SmartLock tool prevents users from modifying and
deleting files. You can commit files to a write-once, read-many
state: The file can never be modified and cannot be deleted
until after a set retention period. SmartLock can help you
comply with Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 17a-4.
CloudPools CloudPools extends the capabilities of OneFS by moving data
to lower-cost cloud storage. You can move older or seldom-
used data to cloud storage and free up space on your cluster.
CloudPools supports several cloud storage providers.

N+M data protection

OneFS uses data redundancy across the entire cluster to prevent data loss resulting from drive or node failures. Protection is
built into the file system structure and can be applied down to the level of individual files.
Protection in OneFS is modeled on the Reed-Solomon algorithm, which uses forward error correction (FEC). Using FEC, OneFS
allocates data in 128KB chunks. For each N data chunk, OneFS writes M protection, or parity, chunks. Each N+M chunk,
referred to as a protection group, is written on an independent disk in an independent node. This process is referred to as data
striping. By striping data across the entire cluster, OneFS is able to recover files in cases where drives or nodes fail.
In OneFS, the concepts of protection policy and protection level are different. The protection policy is the protection setting
that you specify for storage pools on your cluster. The protection level is the actual protection that OneFS achieves for data,
based on the protection policy and the actual number of writable nodes.
For example, if you have a three-node cluster, and you specify a protection policy of [+2d:1n], OneFS is able to tolerate the
failure of two drives or one node without data loss. However, on that same three-node cluster, if you specify a protection
policy of [+4d:2n], OneFS cannot achieve a protection level that would allow for four drive failures or two node failures. This is
because N+M must be less than or equal to the number of nodes in the cluster.
By default, OneFS calculates and sets a recommended protection policy based on your cluster configuration. The recommended
protection policy achieves the optimal balance between data integrity and storage efficiency.
You can set a protection policy that is higher than the cluster can support. In a four-node cluster, for example, you can set the
protection policy at [5x]. However, OneFS would protect the data at 4x until you add a fifth node to the cluster, after which
OneFS would automatically re-protect the data at 5x.

32 PowerScale scale-out NAS

Data mirroring
You can protect on-disk data with mirroring, which copies data to multiple locations. OneFS supports two to eight mirrors. You
can use mirroring instead of erasure codes, or you can combine erasure codes with mirroring.
Mirroring, however, consumes more space than erasure codes. Mirroring data three times, for example, duplicates the data
three times, which requires more space than erasure codes. As a result, mirroring suits transactions that require high
performance.
You can also mix erasure codes with mirroring. During a write operation, OneFS divides data into redundant protection groups.
For files protected by erasure codes, a protection group consists of data blocks and their erasure codes. For mirrored files, a
protection group contains all the mirrors of a set of blocks. OneFS can switch the type of protection group as it writes a file to
disk. By changing the protection group dynamically, OneFS can continue writing data despite a node failure that prevents the
cluster from applying erasure codes. After the node is restored, OneFS automatically converts the mirrored protection groups to
erasure codes.

The file system journal

A journal, which records file-system changes in a battery-backed NVRAM card, recovers the file system after failures, such as a
power loss. When a node restarts, the journal replays file transactions to restore the file system.

Virtual hot spare (VHS)

When a drive fails, OneFS uses space reserved in a subpool instead of a hot spare drive. The reserved space is known as a
virtual hot spare.
In contrast to a spare drive, a virtual hot spare automatically resolves drive failures and continues writing data. If a drive fails,
OneFS migrates data to the virtual hot spare to reprotect it. You can reserve as many as four disk drives as a virtual hot spare.

Balancing protection with storage space

You can set protection levels to balance protection requirements with storage space.
Higher protection levels typically consume more space than lower levels because you lose an amount of disk space to storing
erasure codes. The overhead for the erasure codes depends on the protection level, the file size, and the number of nodes in
the cluster. Since OneFS stripes both data and erasure codes across nodes, the overhead declines as you add nodes.

Data compression
OneFS supports inline data compression on Isilon F810 and H5600 nodes, and on PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes.
The F810 node contains a Network Interface Card (NIC) that compresses and decompresses data.
Hardware compression and decompression are performed in parallel across the 40Gb Ethernet interfaces of supported nodes as
clients read and write data to the cluster. This distributed interface model allows compression to scale linearly across the node
pool as supported nodes are added to a cluster.
You can enable inline data compression on the Dell PowerScale F900 and F600-NVMe and F200 SSD nodes, PowerScale
H700/7000 and A300/3000 node, and the Isilon F810 and H5600 platforms.
The following table lists the nodes and OneFS release combinations that support inline data compression.

Nodes Required OneFS releases

F810 8.1.3 or 8.2.1 and later
F900 nodes 9.2.0.0. and later
H5600 nodes 8.2.0 or 8.2.2 and later
H700, H7000 nodes 9.2.1.0 and later
F200, F600 nodes 9.0.0.0 and later

PowerScale scale-out NAS 33

Nodes Required OneFS releases
A300, A3000 nodes 9.2.1.0 and later
P100 and B100 accelerator nodes 9.3.0.0 and later

Mixed Clusters
In a mixed cluster environment, data is stored in a compressed form on F810, H5600, F200, and F600 node pools. Data that is
written or tiered to storage pools of other node types is uncompressed when it moves between pools.

Software modules
You can access advanced features by activating licenses for Dell Technologies PowerScale software modules.

SmartLock SmartLock protects critical data from malicious, accidental, or premature alteration or deletion to help you
comply with SEC 17a-4 regulations. You can automatically commit data to a tamper-proof state and then
retain it with a compliance clock.
HDFS OneFS works with the Hadoop Distributed File System protocol to help clients running Apache Hadoop, a
framework for data-intensive distributed applications, analyze big data.
SyncIQ SyncIQ replicates data on another PowerScale cluster and automates failover and failback between
automated clusters. If a cluster becomes unusable, you can fail over to another PowerScale cluster. Failback restores
failover and the original source data after the primary cluster becomes available again.
failback
Security Security hardening is the process of configuring your system to reduce or eliminate as many security risks
hardening as possible. You can apply a hardening policy that secures the configuration of OneFS, according to policy
guidelines.
SnapshotIQ SnapshotIQ protects data with a snapshot—a logical copy of data that is stored on a cluster. A snapshot
can be restored to its top-level directory.
SmartDedupe You can reduce redundancy on a cluster by running SmartDedupe. Deduplication creates links that can
impact the speed at which you can read from and write to files.
SmartPools SmartPools enables you to create multiple file pools governed by file-pool policies. The policies move files
and directories among node pools or tiers. You can also define how OneFS handles write operations when
a node pool or tier is full.
CloudPools Built on the SmartPools policy framework, CloudPools enables you to archive data to cloud storage,
effectively defining the cloud as another tier of storage. CloudPools supports Dell Technologies
PowerScale, Dell Technologies ECS Appliance, Amazon S3, Amazon C2S, Alibaba Cloud, and Microsoft
Azure as cloud storage providers.
SmartConnect If you activate a SmartConnect Advanced license, you can balance policies to evenly distribute CPU
Advanced usage, client connections, or throughput. You can also define IP address pools to support multiple DNS
zones in a subnet. SmartConnect also supports IP failover, also known as Dynamic IPs, to support NFS
failover. It is recommended that you define a static pool that encompasses all nodes for management
purposes. Dynamic IP addresses are configured only on nodes with quorum to ensure client connectivity.
Defining a static pool for all nodes avoids administration difficulties for out of quorum nodes that will not
have dynamic IP addresses configured for SSH connections.
InsightIQ The InsightIQ virtual appliance monitors and analyzes the performance of your PowerScale cluster to help
you optimize storage resources and forecast capacity.
SmartQuotas The SmartQuotas module tracks disk usage with reports and enforces storage limits with alerts.
S3 OneFS support for the Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) protocol enables using
the Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) protocol to store data in the form of
objects on top of the OneFS file system storage. Using S3-OneFS enables reading data from, and writing
data to, the PowerScale platform. The data resides under a single namespace. The AWS S3 protocol
becomes a primary resident of the OneFS protocol stack, along with NFS, SMB, and HDFS, allowing
multiprotocol access to objects and files. The S3 protocol supports bucket and object creation, retrieving,
updating, and deletion. Object retrievals and updates are atomic. Bucket properties can be updated.

34 PowerScale scale-out NAS

Objects are accessible using NFS and SMB as normal files, providing cross-protocol support. To use S3,
administrators generate access IDs and secret keys to authenticated users for access.

PowerScale scale-out NAS 35

 3
General cluster administration
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• General cluster administration overview
• User interfaces
• Connecting to the cluster
• Licensing
• Certificates
• Cluster identity
• Cluster date and time
• SMTP email settings
• Configuring the cluster join mode
• File system settings
• Security hardening
• Cluster monitoring
• Monitoring cluster hardware
• Events and alerts
• Cluster maintenance
• SupportAssist
• SRS Summary

General cluster administration overview

You can manage general OneFS settings and module licenses for your PowerScale cluster.
General cluster administration covers several areas. You can:
● Manage general settings such as cluster name, date and time, and email.
● Monitor the cluster status and performance, including hardware components.
● Configure how to handle events and notifications.
● Perform cluster maintenance such as adding, removing, and restarting nodes.
● Configure security hardening and compliance settings for the cluster.
You can accomplish most management tasks using either the web administration or command-line interface. However, there are
some tasks that you can manage only in one or the other.

User interfaces
OneFS provides several interfaces for managing PowerScale clusters.

Interface Description Comment

OneFS web administration interface The browser-based OneFS web The OneFS web administration interface
administration interface provides secure uses port 8080 as its default port.
access with OneFS-supported browsers.
Use this interface to view robust
graphical monitoring displays and to
perform cluster-management tasks.

36 General cluster administration

Interface Description Comment
OneFS command-line interface Run OneFS isi commands in the TheOneFS command-line interface
command-line interface to configure, provides an extended standard UNIX
monitor, and manage the cluster. Access command set for managing the cluster.
to the command-line interface is through
a secure shell (SSH) connection to any
node in the cluster.
OneFS API The OneFS application programming You should have a solid understanding
interface (API) is divided into two of HTTP/1.1 and experience writing
functional areas: one area enables HTTP-based client software before
cluster configuration, management, and you implement client-based software
monitoring functionality, and the other through the OneFS API.
area enables operations on files and
directories on the cluster. You can send
requests to the OneFS API through a
Representational State Transfer (REST)
interface, which is accessed through
resource URIs and standard HTTP
methods.
Node front panel With the exception of accelerator nodes, Node status, events, cluster details,
the front panel of each node contains capacity, IP and MAC addresses,
an LCD screen with five buttons that throughput, and drive status are
you can use to monitor node and cluster available through the node front panel.
details.

Connecting to the cluster

PowerScale cluster access is provided through the web administration interface or through SSH. You can use a serial connection
to perform cluster administration tasks through the command-line interface.
You can also access the cluster through the node front panel to accomplish a subset of cluster management tasks. For
information about connecting to the node front panel, see the installation documentation for your node.

Log in to the web administration interface

You can monitor and manage your PowerScale cluster from the browser-based web administration interface.
1. In a browser window, enter the URL for your cluster in the address field. In the following examples, replace
<yourNodeIPaddress> with the first IP address you provided when you configured ext-1.

IPv4 https://<yourNodeIPaddress>:8080
IPv6 https://[<yourNodeIPaddress>]:8080

If your security certificates have not been configured, the system displays a message. Resolve any certificate configurations,
then continue to the website.
2. Log in to OneFS by typing your OneFS credentials in the Username and Password fields.
After you log in to the web administration interface, there is a 4-hour login timeout.

Open an SSH connection to a cluster

You can use any SSH client such as OpenSSH or PuTTY to connect to a PowerScale cluster.
You must have valid OneFS credentials to log in to a cluster after the connection is open.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster, using the IP address of the node and port number 22.
2. Log in with your OneFS credentials.
At the OneFS system prompt, you can use isi commands to monitor and manage your cluster.

General cluster administration 37

Licensing
All PowerScale software and hardware must be licensed through Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC).
A license file contains a record of your active software licenses and your cluster hardware. One copy of the license file is stored
in the SLC repository, and another copy of the license file is stored on your cluster. The license file on your cluster and the
license file in the SLC repository must match. The license file contains a record of the following:
● OneFS license
● Optional software module licenses
● Hardware information

Software licenses
Your OneFS license and optional software module licenses are contained in the license file on your cluster. Your license file must
match your license record in the Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC) repository.
Ensure that the license file on your cluster, and your license file in the SLC repository, match your upgraded version of OneFS.
Advanced cluster features are available when you activate licenses for the following OneFS software modules:
● CloudPools
● Security hardening
● HDFS
● PowerScale Swift
● SmartConnect Advanced
● SmartDedupe
● SmartLock
● SmartPools
● SmartQuotas
● SnapshotIQ
● SyncIQ
For more information about optional software modules, contact your Dell Technologies sales representative.

Hardware tiers
Your license file contains information about the PowerScale hardware that is installed in your cluster.
Your license file lists nodes by tiers. Nodes are placed into a tier according to their compute performance level, capacity, and
drive type.
NOTE: Your license file contains line items for every node in your cluster. However, pre-Generation 6 hardware is not
included in the OneFS licensing model.

License status
The status of a OneFS license indicates whether the license file on your cluster reflects your current version of OneFS. The
status of a OneFS module license indicates whether the functionality provided by a module is available on the cluster.
Licenses exist in one of the following states:

Status Description
Unsigned The license has not been updated in Dell Technologies
Software Licensing Central (SLC). You must generate and
submit an activation file to update your license file with your
new version of OneFS.
Inactive The license has not been activated on the cluster. You cannot
access the features provided by the corresponding module.

38 General cluster administration

Status Description
Evaluation The license has been temporarily activated on the cluster.
You can access the features provided by the corresponding
module for 90 days.
Activated The license has been activated on the cluster. You can access
the features provided by the corresponding module.
Expired The license has expired on the cluster. After the license
expires, you must generate and submit an activation file to
update your license file.

View license information

You can view information about the current license status for OneFS, hardware, and optional PowerScale software modules.
● Click Cluster Management > Licensing.
You can review information about licenses, including status and expiration date.
You can find information that is related to OneFS licenses in the OneFS cluster license overview area.
You can find information that is related to optional software modules in the Software licenses overview area.

● You can view active alerts that are related to your licenses by clicking Alerts about licenses in the upper corner of the
Cluster Management > Licensing page.

Adding and removing licenses

You can allow OneFS to update your license file automatically, or you can update your license file manually.
The automated process to update a license file requires that SupportAssist is connected to Dell Technologies Support and that
the remote support option is enabled. If you are using SRS to update your license file, then SRS and the in-product activation
option must both be enabled.
The manual process to update a license file requires generating an activation file, submitting the activation file to Dell
Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC), and then uploading an updated license file to your cluster.
Your license file should be updated when you:
● Require the activation of an optional software module.
● Add new hardware.
● Upgrade existing hardware.

Enable OneFS to update your license file automatically

You can enable OneFS to keep your license file updated automatically using SupportAssist or SRS.

SupportAssist
To allow OneFS to automatically update your license file using SupportAssist, follow these instructions:
1. Enable SupportAssist.
2. Enable remote support.
NOTE: When you first enable SupportAssist, remote support is enabled by default.

SRS
To allow OneFS to automatically update your license file using SRS, follow these instructions:
1. Enable SRS.
2. Enable in-product activation.
NOTE: When you first enable SRS, in-product activation is enabled by default.

General cluster administration 39

Update a license activation file manually
To update the license file, generate a license activation file and submit it to Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC).
1. Click Cluster Management > Licensing.
2. In the OneFS License Management area, click Open Activation File Wizard.
3. Click the checkboxes next to the software modules to select or de-select the contents of your activation file.
Modules that are pre-selected are included in your license file. You can de-select a module to remove the license.
To undo changes that were made to the list, click Revert changes at the bottom of the page.

4. Click Review Changes.

5. Review the changes that you are planning to make to the activation file.
The Contents of activation file area contains a list of all licenses that are included in the activation file.
This page also lists licenses that you selected to remove from the activation file, and licenses that were selected to add.

6. Click Create file.

7. Review the full contents of the activation file.
The OneFS license and a summary of the hardware tiers are also displayed on this summary page.
8. Click Accept.
9. Click Download activation file.
Save the activation file to the local machine.
10. Click Complete process.
Now that you have a copy of the activation file on your local machine, you can submit the file to Dell Technologies Software
Licensing Central (SLC).

Submit a license activation file to SLC

After you generate an activation file in OneFS, submit the activation file to Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC)
to receive a signed license file for your cluster.
Before you submit your activation file to SLC, you must generate the activation file through OneFS and save the file to your
local machine.
1. From your local, internet-connected system, go to Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC).
2. Log into the system using your Dell Technologies credentials.
3. Click ACTIVATE at the top of the page.
A menu appears with two options: Activate and Activate by File.
4. Click Activate by File
The Upload Activation File page appears.
5. Confirm that your company name is listed next to Company.
If your company name is not displayed, click Select a Company and search with your company name and ID.
6. Click Upload.
7. Locate the activation file on your local machine and click Open.
This is an XML file. The file was originally generated with the name activation.xml but you may have saved it with a
different name.
8. Click the Start the Activation Process button.
The Apply License Authorization Code (LAC) page appears.
9. In the Missing Product & Quantities Summary table, confirm that there is a green check in the column on the far right.
If any row is missing a green check in that column, you can search for a different LAC by clicking the Search button and
selecting a different available LAC.
10. Click the Next: Review button.
11. Click the Activate button.
When the signed license file is available, SLC will send it to you as an attachment to an email.
NOTE: Your signed license file may not be available immediately.

40 General cluster administration

 The signed license file is an XML file with a name in the following format:

ISLN_nnn_date.xml

For example, ISLN_15002_13-Feb-2019.xml

12. Download the signed license file to your local machine, in a directory where you can locate it for the next procedure. For
example, save it in /ifs on your local machine.

Upload the updated license file

After you receive an updated license file from Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC), upload the updated file to
the cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > Licensing.
2. In the Upload and activate a signed license file area, click Browse and select the signed license file.
3. Click Upload and Activate.

Activating trial licenses

You can activate a trial license that allows you to evaluate an optional software module for 90 days.

Activate a trial license

You can activate a trial license to evaluate a OneFS software module for 90 days.
1. Click Cluster Management > Licensing.
2. In the Manage trial versions of software modules area, click Manage Trials.
3. Click the check box next to the software modules you want to evaluate.
4. Click Start Trial.

Certificates
All OneFS API communication, which includes communication through the web administration interface, is over Transport Layer
Security (TLS). You can renew the TLS certificate for the OneFS web administration interface or replace it with a third-party
TLS certificate.
To configure, import, replace, or renew a TLS certificate, you must be logged in as root.

NOTE: OneFS defaults to the best supported version of TLS for each request.

Viewing and Editing TLS Authority Certificates

View and edit the TLS authority certificates that are installed on the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Authority tab.
3. Next to the certificate that you want to view or edit, click the View/Edit button.
4. Make any needed changes and click the Save button.

Importing TLS Authority Certificates

Import a TLS authority certificate onto the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Authority tab.
3. Click the Import authority button.

General cluster administration 41

4. In the Import certificate authority window, browse to the certificate file, select the certificate file, and then click Select.
5. In the Import certificate authority window, enter the Alias name and Description for the authority certificate, and then
click Save.

Replacing TLS Authority Certificates - Overview

The Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate is used to access the cluster through a browser. The cluster initially contains a
self-signed certificate for this purpose. You can continue to use the existing self-signed certificate, or you can replace it with a
third-party certificate authority (CA)-issued certificate.
If you continue to use the self-signed certificate, you must replace it when it expires, with either:
● A third party (public or private) CA-issued certificate.
● Another self-signed certificate that is generated on the cluster.

Replacing TLS Authority Certificates

Replace a TLS authority certificate on the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Authority tab.
3. Next to the certificate that you want to replace, click the Replace button.
4. Confirm the replacement by clicking the Replace button.
5. In the Replace certificate authority window, browse to the certificate file, select the certificate file, and then click
Select.
6. In the Replace certificate authority window, enter the Alias name and Description for the authority certificate, and then
click Save.

Deleting TLS Authority Certificates

Delete a TLS authority certificate from the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Authority tab.
3. Next to the certificate that you want to delete, click the Delete button.
4. Confirm the deletion by clicking the Delete button.

Viewing and Editing TLS Server Certificates

View and edit the TLS server certificates that are installed on the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Server tab.
3. Next to the certificate that you want to view or edit, click the View/Edit button.
4. Make any needed changes and click the Save button.

Importing TLS Server Certificates

Import a TLS server certificate onto the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Server tab.
3. Click the Import certificate button.
4. In the Import server certificate window, browse to the certificate file, select the certificate file, and then click Select.
5. In the Import server certificate window, browse to the certificate key, select the certificate key, and then click Select.
6. In the Import server certificate window, enter the Certificate key password, the Alias name, and the Description for
the server certificate, and then click Save.

42 General cluster administration

Configuring TLS Certificate Settings
Configure the TLS certificates settings for the cluster by performing the following steps:
1. In the Access drop-down, click TLS Certificates.
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. To enable the certificate monitor, click the Enable certificate monitor button.
4. Select the number of days to use for the Certificate pre expiration threshold.
5. Select the Default HTTPS certificate from the drop-down.
6. Make any needed changes and click the Save button.

TLS certificate data example

TLS certificate renewal or replacement requires you to provide data such as a fully qualified domain name and a contact email
address.
When you renew or replace a TLS certificate, you are asked to provide data in the format that is shown in the following
example:

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated

into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Washington
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Seattle
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Company
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:System Administration
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:localhost.example.org
Email Address []:[email protected]

In addition, if you are requesting a third-party CA-issued certificate, you should include additional attributes that are shown in
the following example:

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes

to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:password
An optional company name []:Another Name

Cluster identity
You can specify identity attributes for a PowerScale cluster.

Cluster name The cluster name appears on the login page, and it makes the cluster and its nodes more easily
recognizable on your network. Each node in the cluster is identified by the cluster name plus the node
number. For example, the first node in a cluster that is named Images may be named Images-1.
Cluster The cluster description appears below the cluster name on the login page. The cluster description is useful
description if your environment has multiple clusters.
Login message The login message appears as a separate box on the login page of the OneFS web administration
interface, or as a line of text under the cluster name in the OneFS command-line interface. The
login message can convey cluster information, login instructions, or warnings that a user should know
before logging into the cluster. Set this information in the Cluster Identity page of the OneFS web
administration interface.

General cluster administration 43

Set the cluster name and contact information
You can specify a name, description, login message, and contact information for the PowerScale cluster.
Cluster names must begin with a letter and can contain only numbers, letters, and hyphens. If the cluster is joined to an Active
Directory domain, the cluster name must be 15 characters or fewer.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Cluster Identity.
2. Optional: In the Cluster Identity area, type a name for the cluster in the Cluster Name field and type a description in the
Cluster Description field.
3. Optional: In the Login Message area, type a title in the Message Title field and a message in the Message Body field.
4. In the Contact Information area, enter the name and location of your company.
5. In the Primary Administrator Information area, enter the name, phone numbers, and email address of the primary OneFS
administrator for the cluster.
6. In the Secondary Administrator Information area, enter the name, phone numbers, and email address of the secondary
OneFS administrator for the cluster.
7. Click Save Changes..
You must add the cluster name to the DNS servers.

Cluster date and time

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) service is configurable manually, so you can ensure that all nodes in a cluster are
synchronized to the same time source.
The NTP method automatically synchronizes cluster date and time settings through an NTP server. Alternatively, you can set
the date and time reported by the cluster by manually configuring the service.
Windows domains provide a mechanism to synchronize members of the domain to a main clock running on the domain
controllers, so OneFS adjusts the cluster time to that of Active Directory with a service. If there are no external NTP servers
that are configured, OneFS uses the Windows domain controller as the NTP time server. When the cluster and domain time that
is become out of sync by more than 4 minutes, OneFS generates an event notification.
NOTE: If the cluster and Active Directory that is become out of sync by more than 5 minutes, authentication does not
work.

Set the cluster date and time

You can set the date, time, and time zone that is used by the PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Date & Time.
The Date and Time page displays a list of each node's IP address and the date and time settings for each node.
2. From the Date and time lists, select the month, date, year, hour, and minute settings.
3. From the Time zone list, select a value.
If the time zone that you want is not in the list, select Advanced from the Time zone list, and then select the time zone
from the Advanced time zone list.

4. Click Submit.

Specify an NTP time server

You can specify one or more Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers to synchronize the system time on the PowerScale cluster.
The cluster periodically contacts the NTP servers and sets the date and time using information from the NTP servers.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > NTP.
2. In the NTP Servers area, type the IPv4 or IPv6 address of one or more NTP servers. If you want to use a key file, type the
key numbers in the field next to the server IP address.
Click Add Another NTP Server if you are specifying multiple servers.
3. Optional: If you are using a key file for the NTP server, type the file path for that file in the Path to Key File field.

44 General cluster administration

4. In the Chimer Settings area, specify the number of chimer nodes that contact NTP servers (the default is 3).
5. To exclude a node from chiming, type its logical node number (LNN) in the Nodes Excluded from Chiming field.
6. Click Save Changes.

SMTP email settings

If your network environment requires the use of an SMTP server or if you want to route PowerScale cluster event notifications
with SMTP through a port, you can configure SMTP email settings.
SMTP settings include the SMTP relay address and port number that email is routed through. You can specify an origination
email and subject line for all event notification email messages sent from the cluster.
If your SMTP server is configured to support authentication, you can specify a username and password. You can also specify
whether to apply encryption to the connection.

Configure SMTP email settings

You can send event notifications through an SMTP mail server. You can also enable SMTP authentication if your SMTP server is
configured to support it.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Email Settings.
2. In the SMTP Settings area, enter the IPv4 or IPv6 address or the fully qualified domain name of the SMTP relay in the
SMTP relay address field.
3. In the SMTP relay port field, type the port number.
The default port number is 25.
4. Click the Use SMTP Authentication check box to require SMTP authentication.
Fields in which you can enter the authentication user name and password appear, as well as radio buttons pertaining to
transport layer security. Skip to step 7 if you do not want to use SMTP authentication.
5. Enter the authentication user name and password, and confirm the password.
6. Specify the connection security. The default is no security. Select STARTTLS if you want to use a TLS encrypted
connection.
7. In the Event group notification settings area, type the originating email address that will be displayed in the To line of the
email in the Send email as field.
8. In the Subject field, type the text that will be displayed in the Subject line of the email.
9. If you want to batch event notification emails, select an option from the Notification Batch Mode drop-down menu. The
default is No batching.
10. In the Default Email Template drop-down menu, select whether to use the default template provided with OneFS or a
custom template. If you select a custom template, the Custom Template Location field appears. Enter a path name for the
template.
11. Click Save Changes.
You can test your configuration by sending a test event notification.

Configuring the cluster join mode

The cluster join mode specifies how a node is added to the PowerScale cluster and whether authentication is required. OneFS
supports manual and secure join modes for adding nodes to the cluster.

Mode Description
Manual Allows you to manually add a node to the cluster without
requiring authorization.
Secure Requires authorization of every node added to the cluster.
The node must be added through the web administration
interface or through the isi devices -a add -d
<unconfigured_node_serial_no> command in the
command-line interface.

General cluster administration 45

Mode Description

NOTE: If you specify a secure join mode, you cannot join

a node to the cluster through serial console wizard option
[2] Join an existing cluster.

Specify the cluster join mode

You can specify a join mode that determines how nodes are added to the PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Join Mode.
2. In the Settings area, select the mode that will determine how nodes can be added to the cluster.

Option Description
Manual Joins can be manually initiated
Secure Joins can be initiated only by the cluster and require authentication
3. Click Submit.

File system settings

You can configure global file system settings on a PowerScale cluster for access time tracking and character encoding.
You can enable or disable access time tracking, which monitors the time of access on each file. If necessary, you can also
change the default character encoding on the cluster.

Enable or disable access time tracking

You can enable access time tracking to support features that require it.
By default, the PowerScale cluster does not track the timestamp when files are accessed. You can enable this feature to
support OneFS features that use it. For example, access-time tracking must be enabled to configure SyncIQ policy criteria that
match files based on when they were last accessed.

NOTE: Enabling access-time tracking may affect cluster performance.

1. Click File system > File system settings > Access time tracking.
2. In the Access time tracking area, click the Enable access time tracking check box to track file access time stamps. This
feature is disabled by default.
3. In the Precision fields, specify how often to update the last-accessed time by typing a numeric value and by selecting a unit
of measure, such as Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, or Years.
For example, if you configure a Precision setting of one day, the cluster updates the last-accessed time once each day, even
if some files were accessed more often than once during the day.
4. Click Save changes.

Specify the cluster character encoding

You can modify the character encoding set for thePowerScale cluster after installation.
Only OneFS-supported character sets are available for selection. UTF-8 is the default character set for OneFS nodes.
NOTE: If the cluster character encoding is not set to UTF-8, SMB share names are case-sensitive.

You must restart the cluster to apply character encoding changes.

CAUTION: Character encoding is typically established during installation of the cluster. Modifying the character
encoding setting after installation may render files unreadable if done incorrectly. Modify settings only if
necessary after consultation with Dell Technologies Support.

46 General cluster administration

1. Click File system > File system settings > Character encoding.
2. Optional: From the Character encoding list, select the character-encoding set that you want to use.
3. Click Save changes, and then click Yes to acknowledge that the encoding change becomes effective after the cluster is
restarted.
4. Restart the cluster.
After the cluster restarts, the OneFS web administration interface reflects your change.

Security hardening
Security hardening is the process of configuring a system to reduce or eliminate security risks. The OneFS Security Hardening
Module is primarily for use by United States federal government accounts.
OneFS is secure in its default configuration. The United States federal government requires configurations and limitations that
are more strict than the default.
The Security Hardening Module provides a hardening profile that you can apply to a OneFS cluster. A hardening profile is a
collection of rules that changes the cluster configuration so that the cluster complies with strict security rules.
The predefined STIG hardening profile is designed to enforce security principles that are defined in the United States
Department of Defense (DoD) Security Requirements Guides (SRGs) and Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs).
The STIG hardening profile applies controls to the OneFS cluster that reduce security vulnerabilities and attack surfaces.
For more about the STIG profile and how to apply it, see the "United States Federal and DoD Standards and Compliance"
chapter in the PowerScale OneFS Security Configuration Guide. That chapter also includes instructions for running periodic
compliance reports after applying the profile.
The Security Hardening Module is a separately licensed OneFS module. For licensing information, see the Licensing section in
the "General Cluster Administration chapter" of this guide.

Cluster monitoring
You can monitor the health, performance, and status of the PowerScale cluster.
Using the OneFS dashboard from the web administration interface, you can monitor the status and health of the OneFS system.
Information is available for individual nodes, including node-specific network traffic, internal and external network interfaces, and
details about node pools, tiers, and overall cluster health. You can monitor the following areas of the PowerScale cluster health
and performance:

Node status Health and performance statistics for each node in the cluster, including hard disk drive (HDD) and
solid-state drive (SSD) usage.
Client Number of clients connected per node.
connections
New events List of event notifications generated by system events, including the severity, unique instance ID, start
time, alert message, and scope of the event.
Cluster size Current view: Used and available HDD and SSD space and space reserved for the virtual hot spare
(VHS).
Historical view: Total used space and cluster size for a one-year period.
Cluster Current view: Average inbound and outbound traffic volume passing through the nodes in the cluster for
throughput (file the past hour.
system) Historical view: Average inbound and outbound traffic volume passing through the nodes in the cluster
for the past two weeks.
CPU usage Current view: Average system, user, and total percentages of CPU usage for the past hour.
Historical view: CPU usage for the past two weeks.

General cluster administration 47

Monitor the cluster
You can monitor the health and performance of an PowerScale cluster with charts and tables that show the status and
performance of nodes, client connections, events, cluster size, cluster throughput, and CPU usage.
1. Click Dashboard > Cluster Overview > Cluster Status.
2. Optional: View cluster details.
● Status: To view details about a node, click the ID number of the node.
● Client connection summary: To view a list of current connections, click Dashboard > Cluster Overview > Client
Connections .
● New events: To view more information about an event, click View details in the Actions column.
● Cluster size: To switch between current and historical views, click Historical or Current near the Monitoring section
heading. In historical view, click Used or Cluster size to change the display.
● Cluster throughput (file system): To switch between current and historical views, click Historical or Current next to
the Monitoring section heading. To view throughput statistics for a specific period within the past two weeks, click
Dashboard > Cluster Overview > Throughput Distribution.
NOTE: You can hide or show inbound or outbound throughput by clicking Inbound or Outbound in the chart legend.
To view maximum throughput, next to Show, select Maximum.
● CPU usage: To switch between current and historical views, click Historical or Current near the Monitoring section
heading.
NOTE:

You can hide or show a plot by clicking System, User, or Total in the chart legend. To view maximum usage, next to
Show, select Maximum.

View node status

You can view the current and historical status of a node.
1. Click Dashboard > Cluster Overview > Cluster Status.
2. Optional: In the Status area, click the ID number for the node that you want to view status for.
3. View node details.
● Status: To view networks settings for a node interface or subnet or pool, click the link in the Status area.
● Client connections: To view current clients connected to this node, review the list in this area.
● Chassis and drive status: To view the state of drives in this node, review this area. To view details about a drive, click the
name link of the drive; for example, Bay1.
● Node size: To switch between current and historical views, click Historical or Current next to the Monitoring area
heading. In historical view, click Used or Cluster size to change the display accordingly.
● Node throughput (file system): To switch between current and historical views, click Historical or Current next to the
Monitoring area heading. To view throughput statistics for a period within the past two weeks, click Dashboard >
Cluster Overview > Throughput Distribution.
NOTE: You can hide or show inbound or outbound throughput by clicking Inbound or Outbound in the chart legend.
To view maximum throughput, next to Show, select Maximum.
● CPU usage: To switch between current and historical views, click Historical or Current next to the Monitoring area
heading.
NOTE: You can hide or show a plot by clicking System, User, or Total in the chart legend. To view maximum usage,
next to Show, select Maximum.

Monitoring cluster hardware

You can manually check the status of hardware on the PowerScale cluster as well as enable SNMP to remotely monitor
components.

48 General cluster administration

View node hardware status
You can view the hardware status of a node.
1. Click Dashboard > Cluster Overview > Cluster Status.
2. Optional: In the Status area, click the ID number for a node.
3. In the Chassis and drive status area, click Platform.

Chassis and drive states

You can view chassis and drive state details.
In a cluster, the combination of nodes in different degraded states determines whether read requests, write requests, or both
work. A cluster can lose write quorum but keep read quorum. OneFS provides details about the status of chassis and drives in
your cluster. The following table describes all the possible states that you may encounter in your cluster.

State Description Interface Error state

HEALTHY All drives in the node are functioning correctly. Command-line
interface, web
administration interface
L3 A solid state drive (SSD) was deployed as level 3 Command-line interface
(L3) cache to increase the size of cache memory
and improve throughput speeds.
SMARTFAIL or The drive is in the process of being removed Command-line
Smartfail or safely from the file system, either because of an interface, web
restripe in I/O error or by user request. Nodes or drives in administration interface
progress a smartfail or read-only state affect only write
quorum.
NOT AVAILABLE A drive is unavailable for a variety of reasons. Command-line X
You can click the bay to view detailed information interface, web
about this condition. administration interface
NOTE: In the web administration interface,
this state includes the ERASE and
SED_ERROR command-line interface states.

SUSPENDED This state indicates that drive activity is Command-line

temporarily suspended and the drive is not in use. interface, web
The state is manually initiated and does not occur administration interface
during normal cluster activity.
NOT IN USE A node in an offline state affects both read and Command-line
write quorum. interface, web
administration interface
REPLACE The drive was smartfailed successfully and is Command-line interface
ready to be replaced. only
STALLED The drive is stalled and undergoing stall Command-line interface
evaluation. Stall evaluation is the process of only
checking drives that are slow or having other
issues. Depending on the outcome of the
evaluation, the drive may return to service or be
smartfailed. This is a transient state.
NEW The drive is new and blank. This is the state Command-line interface
that a drive is in when you run the isi dev only
command with the -a add option.
USED The drive was added and contained a Command-line interface
PowerScaleGUID but the drive is not from this only

General cluster administration 49

State Description Interface Error state
node. This drive likely will be formatted into the
cluster.
PREPARING The drive is undergoing a format operation. Command-line interface
The drive state changes to HEALTHY when the only
format is successful.
EMPTY No drive is in this bay. Command-line interface
only
WRONG_TYPE The drive type is wrong for this node. For Command-line interface
example, a non-SED drive in a SED node, SAS only
instead of the expected SATA drive type.
BOOT_DRIVE Unique to the A100 drive, which has boot drives Command-line interface
in its bays. only
SED_ERROR The drive cannot be acknowledged by the OneFS Command-line X
system. interface, web
NOTE: In the web administration interface, administration interface
this state is included in Not available.

ERASE The drive is ready for removal but needs your Command-line interface
attention because the data has not been erased. only
You can erase the drive manually to guarantee
that data is removed.
NOTE: In the web administration interface,
this state is included in Not available.

INSECURE Data on the self-encrypted drive is accessible Command-line interface X

by unauthorized personnel. Self-encrypting drives only
should never be used for non-encrypted data
purposes.
NOTE: In the web administration interface,
this state is labeled Unencrypted SED.

UNENCRYPTED Data on the self-encrypted drive is accessible Web administration X

by unauthorized personnel. Self-encrypting drives interface only
should never be used for non-encrypted data
purposes.
NOTE: In the command-line interface, this
state is labeled INSECURE.

Check battery status

You can monitor the status of NVRAM batteries and charging systems. This task may only be performed at the OneFS
command-line interface on node hardware that supports the command.
1. Open an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
2. Run the isi batterystatus list command to view the status of all NVRAM batteries and charging systems on the
node.
The system displays output similar to the following example:

Lnn Status1 Status2 Result1 Result2

----------------------------------------
1 Good Good - -
2 Good Good - -
3 Good Good - -
----------------------------------------

50 General cluster administration

SNMP monitoring
You can use SNMP to remotely monitor the PowerScale cluster hardware components, such as fans, hardware sensors, power
supplies, and disks. Use the default Linux SNMP tools or a GUI-based SNMP tool of your choice for this purpose.
SNMP is enabled or disabled cluster wide: nodes are not configured individually. You can monitor cluster information from
any node in the cluster. Generated SNMP notifications correspond to CELOG events. You can configure the cluster to send
such SNMP notifications using a command similar to the following (modifying the values depending on your specific SNMP
infrastructure:

isi event channels create snmpchannel snmp --host=<snmp-receiver.example.com> --

snmp-auth-password=<string> --snmp-security-name=<string> --snmp-priv-password=<string>
--snmp-engine-id=<string>

The location where you send traps is specified in the isi event channels command. Event notification rules specify
which types of event types are sent to those locations. By default, both SNMP version 2c and SNMP version 3 are turned
off in OneFS . You must turn on the version you use. SNMP version 3 is recommended over SNMP version 2, as version 2 is
considered less secure.
OneFS does not support SNMP version 1. Although the command isi snmp settings modify includes the option
--snmp-v1-v2-access, OneFS monitors only through SNMP version 2c.
You can configure settings for SNMP version 3 alone or for both SNMP version 2c and version 3.
Elements in an SNMP hierarchy are arranged in a tree structure, similar to a directory tree. As with directories, identifiers move
from general to specific as the string progresses from left to right. Unlike a file hierarchy, however, each element is not only
named, but also numbered.
For example, the SNMP entity
iso.org.dod.internet.private.enterprises.powerscale.cluster.clusterStatus.clusterName.0 maps
to .1.3.6.1.4.1.12124.1.1.1.0. The element 12124 refers to the OneFS SNMP namespace. Anything further to the
right of that number is related to OneFS-specific monitoring.
Management Information Base (MIB) documents define human-readable names for managed objects and specify their datatypes
and other properties. You can download MIBs that are created for SNMP-monitoring of a PowerScale cluster from the OneFS
web administration interface or manage them using the command-line interface (CLI). MIBs are stored in /usr/share/snmp/
mibs/ on a OneFS node. The OneFS ISILON-MIBs serve two purposes:
● Augment the information available in standard MIBs.
● Provide OneFS-specific information that is unavailable in standard MIBs.
ISILON-MIB is a registered enterprise MIB. PowerScale clusters have two separate MIBs:

ISILON-MIB Defines a group of SNMP agents that respond to queries from a network monitoring system (NMS) called
OneFS Statistics Snapshot agents. These agents snapshot the state of the OneFS file system at the time
that it receives a request and reports this information back to the NMS.
ISILON-TRAP- Generates SNMP traps to send to an SNMP monitoring station when relevant circumstances occur that
MIB are defined in the trap protocol data units (PDUs).

The OneFS MIB files map the OneFS-specific object IDs with descriptions. Download or copy MIB files to a directory where your
SNMP tool can find them, such as /usr/share/snmp/mibs/.
To enable Net-SNMP tools to read the MIBs to provide automatic name-to-OID mapping, add -m All to the command, as in
the following example:

snmpwalk -v2c I$ilonpublic -m All <node IP> isilon

During SNMPv2c configuration, it is required that you set the community string using a command similar to the following:

isi snmp settings modify -c <newcommunitystring>

You are not allowed to enable SNMPv2 unless the community string has been changed from the default.

General cluster administration 51

If the MIB files are not in the default Net-SNMP MIB directory, specify the full path, as in the following example. All three lines
are a single command.

snmpwalk -m /usr/local/share/snmp/mibs/ISILON-MIB.txt:/usr \
/share/snmp/mibs/ISILON-TRAP-MIB.txt:/usr/share/snmp/mibs \
/ONEFS-TRAP-MIB.txt -v2c -C c -c public isilon

NOTE: The previous examples are run from the snmpwalk command on a cluster. Your SNMP version may require
different arguments.

Managing SNMP settings

You can use SNMP to monitor cluster hardware and system information. You can configure settings through either the web
administration interface or the command-line interface.
The default SNMP v3 username (general) and password can be changed to anything from the CLI or the WebUI. The username
is only required when SNMP v3 is enabled and making SNMP v3 queries.
Configure a network monitoring system (NMS) to query each node directly through a static IPv4 address. If a node is configured
for IPv6, you can communicate with SNMP over IPv6.
The SNMP proxy is enabled by default, and the SNMP implementation on each node is configured automatically to proxy for all
other nodes in the cluster except itself. This proxy configuration allows the PowerScale Management Information Base (MIB)
and standard MIBs to be exposed seamlessly by using context strings for supported SNMP versions. This approach allows you
to query a node through another node by appending _node_<node number> to the community string of the query. For example,
snmpwalk -m /usr/share/snmp/mibs/ISILON-MIB.txt -v 2c -c 'I$ilonpublic_node_1' localhost
<nodename>.

Configure the cluster for SNMP monitoring

You can configure your PowerScale cluster to remotely monitor hardware components using SNMP.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > SNMP Monitoring.
2. In the SNMP Service Settings, click the Enable SNMP Service check box. The SNMP service is enabled by default.
3. Download the MIB file you want to use (base or trap).
Follow the download process that is specific to your browser.
4. Copy the MIB files to a directory where your SNMP tool can find them, such as /usr/share/snmp/mibs/.
To have Net-SNMP tools read the MIBs to provide automatic name-to-OID mapping, add -m All to the command, as in
the following example:

snmpwalk -v2c -c public -m All <node IP> isilon

5. If your protocol is SNMPv2, ensure that the Allow SNMPv2 Access check box is selected. SNMPv2 is selected by default.
6. In the SNMPv2 Read-Only Community Name field, enter the appropriate community name. The default is
I$ilonpublic.
7. To enable SNMPv3, click the Allow SNMPv3 Access check box.
8. Configure SNMP v3 Settings:
a. In the SNMPv3 Read-Only User Name field, type the SNMPv3 security name to change the name of the user with
read-only privileges.
The default read-only user is general.
b. In the SNMPv3 Read-Only Password field, type the new password for the read-only user to set a new SNMPv3
authentication password.
The default password is password. We recommend that you change the password to improve security. The password
must contain at least eight characters and no spaces.
c. Type the new password in the Confirm password field to confirm the new password.
9. In the SNMP Reporting area, enter a cluster description in the Cluster Description field.
10. In the System Contact Email field, enter the contact email address.
11. Click Save Changes.

52 General cluster administration

View SNMP settings
You can review SNMP monitoring settings.
● Click Cluster Management > General Settings > SNMP Monitoring.

Events and alerts

OneFS continuously monitors the health and performance of your cluster and generates events when situations occur that
might require your attention.
Events can be related to file system integrity, network connections, jobs, hardware, and other vital operations and components
of your cluster. After events are captured, they are analyzed by OneFS. Events with similar root causes are organized into event
groups.
An event group is a single point of management for numerous events related to a particular situation. You can determine which
event groups you want to monitor, ignore, or resolve.
An alert is the message that reports on a change that has occurred in an event group. For some events, you can set the
thresholds at which to raise alerts.
You can control how alerts related to an event group are distributed. Alerts are distributed through channels. You can create and
configure a channel to send alerts to a specific audience, control the content the channel distributes, and limit frequency of the
alerts.

Events overview
Events are individual occurrences or conditions related to the data workflow, maintenance operations, and hardware
components of your cluster.
Throughout OneFS there are processes that are constantly monitoring and collecting information on cluster operations.
When the status of a component or operation changes, the change is captured as an event and placed into a priority queue at
the kernel level.
Every event has two ID numbers that help to establish the context of the event:
● The event type ID identifies the type of event that has occurred.
● The event instance ID is a unique number that is specific to a particular occurrence of an event type. When an event is
submitted to the kernel queue, an event instance ID is assigned. You can reference the instance ID to determine the exact
time that an event occurred.
You can view individual events. However, you manage events and alerts at the event group level.

Alerts overview
An alert is a message that describes a change that has occurred in an event group.
At any point in time, you can view event groups to track situations occurring on your cluster. You can also create alerts to
proactively notify you when there is a change in an event group. For example, you can generate an alert when a new event is
added to an event group, when an event group is resolved, or when the severity of an event group changes.
You can adjust the thresholds at which certain events raise alerts. For example, by default, OneFS generates an alert when a
disk pool is 95% full. You can adjust that threshold to a lower percentage.
You can configure your cluster to generate alerts only for specific event groups, conditions, severity, or during limited time
periods.
Alerts are delivered through channels. You can configure a channel to determine who will receive the alert and when.

Alert channel overview

Alert channels are pathways by which event groups send alerts.
When an alert is generated, the channel that is associated with the alert determines how the alert is distributed and who
receives the alert.

General cluster administration 53

You can configure an alert channel to deliver alerts with one of the following mechanisms: SMTP, SNMP, or Connect Home. You
can also specify the required routing and labeling information for the delivery mechanism.

Event groups overview

Event groups are collections of individual events that are related symptoms of a single situation on your cluster. Event groups
provide a single point of management for multiple event instances that are generated in response to a situation on your cluster.
For example, if a chassis fan fails in a node, OneFS might capture multiple events related both to the failed fan itself, and to
exceeded temperature thresholds within the node. All events related to the fan will be represented in a single event group.
Because there is a single point of contact, you do not need to manage numerous individual events. You can handle the situation
as a single, coherent issue.
All management of events is performed at the event group level. You can mark an event group as resolved or ignored. You can
also configure how and when alerts are distributed for an event group.

Viewing and modifying event groups

You can view event and modify the status of event groups.

View an event group

You can view the details of an event group.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts.
The Event group history tab summarizes the list of all the event groups, and you can customize the list as needed.
● You can filter the data by date range, event group status, and event group severity.
● You can search for relevant event groups by entering the search string in the search box.
2. In the Actions column of the event group you want to view, click View event details.
You can view details of each event group in a separate window.

Change the status of an event group

You can ignore or resolve an event group.
After you resolve an event group, you cannot reverse that action. Any new events that would have been added to the resolved
event group will be added to a new event group.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts.
The Event group history tab summarizes the list of all the event groups, and you can customize the list as needed.
● You can filter the data by date range, event group status, and event group severity.
● You can search for relevant event groups by entering the search string in the search box.
2. In the Actions column of the event group you want to change, click Actions.
3. In the menu that appears, click Resolve event to resolve the event group or Ignore event to ignore the event group.
NOTE: You can perform an action on multiple event groups by selecting the check box next to the Event group
description of the events that you want to change, then selecting an action from the Select a bulk action list.

4. Click Mark Resolved or Ignore to confirm the action.

View an event
You can view the details of a specific event.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts.
The Event group history tab summarizes the list of all the event groups, and you can customize the list as needed.
● You can filter the data by date range, event group status, and event group severity.
● You can search for relevant event groups by entering the search string in the search box.
2. In the Actions column of the event group that contains the event you want to view, click View event details.

54 General cluster administration

3. In the new window, click +See event instance details to expand the list of events.
4. Click View details next to the event whose details you want to view.

Managing alerts
You can view, create, modify, or delete alerts to determine the information you deliver about event groups.

View maintenance mode

You can view the current maintenance mode status.
Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.

Enable maintenance mode

You can enable the CELOG maintenance mode.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. Click Enable CELOG maintenance mode.
A warning message similar to the following appears:

Are you sure you want to enable CELOG maintenance mode?

3. Click Enable CELOG maintenance mode.

The CELOG maintenance mode is enabled and the maintenance window duration to date appears.

Disable maintenance mode

You can disable the CELOG maintenance mode. While disabling, you can view all the events that have occurred during the
maintenance mode and clear the details, if needed.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. Click Disable CELOG maintenance mode.
The Disable CELOG maintenance mode dialog box with the following details appear:
● CELOG maintenance window start date and time
● Duration to date of the maintenance window
● Details of events that occurred during the maintenance mode
3. Click Disable CELOG maintenance mode.
The CELOG maintenance mode is disabled.

View maintenance history

You can view the maintenance history. Maintenance window history is controlled by the event retention policy for the cluster,
which is controlled in the Settings tab.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the Maintenance window history area, view the details.

View alerts by event type id

You can view a list of alerts with their event type IDs with description, category, and associated alert rules and alert channels.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, view the details of all alerts.

General cluster administration 55

Modify alerts by event type id
You can suppress or un-suppress one or more event type ID depending on its current state.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the Actions column of the event type ID you want to modify, click Suppress or Un-suppress.
You can perform an action on multiple event type IDs by selecting the check box next to the event type ID of the alerts you
want to change, then selecting an action from the Select a bulk action list.

View alerting rules

You can view a list of all the alerting rules.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alerting rule tab.
You can view the list of alerting rules.

Create an alerting rule

You can create an alerting rule.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alerting rule tab.
3. Click Create alert rule.
The Create alert rule window appears.
4. Enter the following details:
● Rule name: Enter a name for the new alerting rule.
● Rule condition: Select a condition (New, New Events, Ongoing, Severity Increase, Severity decrease, Resolved) from the
drop-down list.
● Send an alert only if the event lasts longer than: Enter the numerical value in the text box and select the unit of time
from the drop-down list.
● Applies to: Select the check box next to the relevant alert category.
● Add event group ID: Click Add event group ID to add an event group.
● Select alert channel for this rule: Select the check box next to the relevant channel name.
5. Click Create rule.

Modify an alerting rule

You can modify an existing alerting rule.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alerting rule tab.
3. In the Actions column of the alerting rule you want to modify, click Edit rule.
The Edit alert rule window appears.
4. Modify the following details:
● Rule name: You cannot modify the name for an existing alerting rule.
● Rule condition: Select a condition (New, New Events, Ongoing, Severity Increase, Severity decrease, Resolved) from the
drop-down list.
● Send an alert only if the event lasts longer than: Modify the numerical value in the text box and select the unit of time
from the drop-down list.
● Applies to: Select the check box next to the relevant alert category.
● Add event group ID: Click Add event group ID to add a new event group.
● Select alert channel for this rule: Select the check box next to the relevant channel name.
5. Click Save Changes.

56 General cluster administration

Delete an alerting rule
You can delete an existing alerting rule.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alerting rule tab.
3. In the Actions column of the alerting rule, click Edit rule.
The Edit alert rule window appears.
4. Click Delete at the bottom of the window.
The Confirm delete alert rule dialog box appears with the following message:

This action can not be undone. Are you sure you want to delete this alert rule?

5. Click Confirm.

Managing channels
You can view, create, modify, or delete channels to determine how you deliver information about event groups.

View alert channels

You can view the list of all the alert channels.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alert channel tab.
3. View the list of alert channels.

Create a channel
You can create and configure new channels to send out alert information.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alert channel tab.
3. In the Alert Channel area, click Create channel.
4. Select the Enable channel check box to enable or disable the channel.
5. In the Channel name field, type the channel name.
6. Select the delivery mechanism for the channel from the Channel type list.
NOTE: Depending on the delivery mechanism you select, different settings appear.

7. If you are creating an SMTP channel, you can configure the following settings:
a. In the Send to field, enter an email address that you want to receive alerts on this channel.
To add another email address to the channel, click Add another email address.
b. To manually configure the SMTP server settings, select the Manually configured SMTP server settings radio button
and configure the following fields.
c. In the Send from field, enter the email address that you want to appear in the from field of the alert email messages.
d. In the Subject field, enter the text that you want to appear on the subject line of the alert email messages.
e. In the SMTP host or relay address field, enter your SMTP host or relay address.
f. In the SMTP relay port field, enter the number of your SMTP relay port.
g. Select the Use SMTP authentication check box to specify a username and password for your SMTP server.
h. Specify your connection security between NONE or STARTTLS.
i. From the Notification batch mode list, select whether alerts will be batched together, by severity, or by category.
j. From the Notification email template list, select whether email messages will be created from a default or custom
email template.
If you specify a custom template, enter the location of the template on your cluster in the Custom Template Location
field.
k. In the Allowed nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is allowed to send alerts through this
channel.

General cluster administration 57

 To add another allowed node to the channel, click Add another Node. If you do not specify any nodes, all nodes in the
cluster are considered as allowed nodes.
l. In the Excluded nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is not allowed to send alerts through
this channel.
To add another excluded node to the channel, click Exclude another node.
8. If you are creating a CONNECTEMC channel, you can configure the following settings:
a. In the Allowed nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is allowed to send alerts through this
channel.
To add another allowed node to the channel, click Add another node. If you do not specify any nodes, all nodes in the
cluster are considered as allowed nodes.
b. In the Excluded nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is not allowed to send alerts through
this channel.
To add another excluded node to the channel, click Exclude another node.
9. If you are creating an SNMP channel, you can configure the following settings:
a. In the Community field, enter your SNMP community string.
b. In the Host field, enter your SNMP hostname or address.
c. In the Allowed nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is allowed to send alerts through this
channel.
To add another allowed node to the channel, click Add another node. If you do not specify any nodes, all nodes in the
cluster are considered as allowed nodes.
d. In the Excluded nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is not allowed to send alerts through
this channel.
To add another excluded node to the channel, click Exclude another node.
10. Click Create channel.

Modify a channel
You can modify a channel that you have created.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alert channel tab.
3. In the Actions column of the channel you want to modify, click Edit channel.
The Edit alert channel window appears.
4. Select the Enable channel check box to enable or disable the channel.
5. Select the delivery mechanism for the channel from the Channel type list.
NOTE: Depending on the delivery mechanism you select, different settings appear.

6. If you are modifying an SMTP channel, you can change the following settings:
a. In the Send to field, enter an email address that you want to receive alerts on this channel.
To add another email address to the channel, click Add another email address.
b. To manually configure the SMTP server settings, select the Manually configured SMTP server settings radio button
and configure the following fields.
c. In the Subject field, enter the text that you want to appear on the subject line of the alert email messages.
d. In the SMTP host or relay address field, enter your SMTP host or relay address.
e. In the SMTP relay port field, enter the number of your SMTP relay port.
f. Select the Use SMTP authentication check box to specify a username and password for your SMTP server.
g. Specify your connection security between NONE or STARTTLS.
h. From the Notification batch mode list, select whether alerts will be batched together, by severity, or by category.
i. From the Notification email template list, select whether email messages will be created from a standard or custom
email template.
If you specify a custom template, enter the location of the template on your cluster in the Custom template location
field.
j. In the Allowed nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is allowed to send alerts through this
channel.

58 General cluster administration

 To add another allowed node to the channel, click Add another node. If you do not specify any nodes, all nodes in the
cluster are considered as allowed nodes.
k. In the Excluded nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is not allowed to send alerts through
this channel.
To add another excluded node to the channel, click Exclude another node.
7. If you are modifying a CONNECTEMC channel, you can change the following settings:
a. In the Allowed nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is allowed to send alerts through this
channel.
To add another allowed node to the channel, click Add another node. If you do not specify any nodes, all nodes in the
cluster are considered as allowed nodes.
b. In the Excluded nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is not allowed to send alerts through
this channel.
To add another excluded node to the channel, click Exclude another node.
8. If you are modifying an SNMP channel, you can change the following settings:
a. In the Community field, enter your SNMP community string.
b. In the Host field, enter your SNMP hostname or address.
c. In the Allowed nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is allowed to send alerts through this
channel.
To add another allowed node to the channel, click Add another node. If you do not specify any nodes, all nodes in the
cluster are considered as allowed nodes.
d. In the Excluded Nodes field, type the node number of a node in the cluster that is not allowed to send alerts through
this channel.
To add another excluded node to the channel, click Exclude another node.
9. Click Save Changes.

Delete a channel
You can delete channels that you have created.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alert channel tab.
3. In the Alert Channel area, locate the channel you want to delete.
4. In the Actions column of the channel you want to delete, click Edit channel.
The Edit alert channel window appears
5. Click Delete to confirm the action.

Managing event thresholds

You can list, modify, reset, and view alert thresholds for events that use percentage-based statistics to generate alerts.

View events with configurable thresholds and adjust the threshold values
You can view the events with configurable alert thresholds and adjust the thresholds.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Thresholds.
2. In the Actions column of the event that you want to adjust, click Edit thresholds.
3. In the Threshold value column for each threshold you want to adjust, enter an integer in the range 0-100 for each threshold.
4. Click Apply changes.

Maintenance and testing

You can modify event settings to specify retention and storage limits for event data, schedule maintenance history windows,
and send test events.

General cluster administration 59

Event data retention and storage limits
You can modify settings to determine how event data is handled on your cluster.
By default, data related to resolved event groups is retained indefinitely. You can set a retention limit to make the system
automatically delete resolved event group data after a certain number of days.
You can also limit the amount of memory that event data can occupy on your cluster. By default, the limit is 1 megabyte of
memory for every 1 terabyte of total memory on the cluster. You can adjust this limit to be between 1 and 100 megabytes of
memory. For smaller clusters, the minimum amount of memory that will be set aside is 1 gigabyte.
When your cluster reaches a storage limit, the system will begin deleting the oldest event group data to accommodate new data.

View event storage settings

You can view your storage and maintenance settings.
Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Settings.

Modify event storage settings

You can modify your storage and maintenance settings.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Settings.
2. In the Retain event group and maintenance window history field, enter the number of days you want resolved event
groups and maintenance window history to be stored before they are deleted.
3. In the Event log storage limit field, enter the limit for the amount of storage you want to set aside for event data.
The value in this field represents how many megabytes of data can be stored per terabyte of total cluster storage.
4. Click Submit.

Test events and alerts

Test events called heartbeat events are automatically generated. You can also manually generate test alerts.
In order to confirm that the system is operating correctly, test events are automatically sent every day, one event from each
node in your cluster. These are referred to as heartbeat events and are reported to an event group named Heartbeat Event.
To test the configuration of channels, you can manually send a test alert through the system.

Send a test alert

You can manually generate a test alert.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Alert Management.
2. In the CELOG alerting area, click the Alert channel tab.
3. In the Alert Channel area, click Create channel.
4. Locate the Send test alert area.
5. In the Test message field, enter the message that you want to send.
6. Click Send.

Cluster maintenance
Trained service personnel can replace or upgrade components in PowerScale nodes.
Dell PowerScale Technical Support can assist you with replacing node components or upgrading components to increase
performance.

60 General cluster administration

Replacing node components
If a node component fails, Dell Technologies Support will work with you to quickly replace the component and return the node to
a healthy status.
Trained service personnel can replace the following field replaceable units (FRUs):
● battery
● boot flash drive
● SATA/SAS Drive
● memory (DIMM)
● fan
● front panel
● intrusion switch
● network interface card (NIC)
● InfiniBand card
● NVRAM card
● SAS controller
● power supply
If you configure your cluster to send alerts to PowerScale, Dell Technologies Support will contact you if a component needs to
be replaced. If you do not configure your cluster to send alerts to PowerScale, you must initiate a service request.

Upgrading node components

You can upgrade node components to gain additional capacity or performance.
Trained service personnel can upgrade the following components in the field:
● drive
● memory (DIMM)
● network interface card (NIC)
If you want to upgrade components in your nodes, contact Dell Technologies Support.

Automatic Replacement Recognition (ARR) for drives

When a drive is replaced in a node, OneFS automatically formats and adds the drive to the cluster.
If you are replacing a drive in a node, either to upgrade the drive or to replace a failed drive, you do not need to take additional
actions to add the drive to the cluster. OneFS will automatically format the drive and add it.
ARR will also automatically update the firmware on the new drive to match the current drive support package installed on the
cluster. Drive firmware will not be updated for the entire cluster, only for the new drive.
If you prefer to format and add drives manually, you can disable ARR.

View Automatic Replacement Recognition (ARR) status

You can confirm whether ARR is enabled on your cluster.
Click Cluster Management > Automatic Replacement Recognition.
In the ARR settings per node area, all nodes are listed by Logical Node Number (LNN) with the current ARR status for each
node.

Enable or Disable Automatic Replacement Recognition (ARR)

You can enable or disable ARR for your entire cluster, or just for specific nodes.
1. To enable or disable ARR for your entire cluster, click Cluster Management > Automatic Replacement Recognition.
2. In the Settings area, click Disable ARR or Enable ARR.
3. To disable ARR for a specific node, you must perform the following steps through the command-line interface (CLI).

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 a. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
b. Run the following command:

isi devices config modify --automatic-replacement-recognition no --node-lnn <node-

lnn>

If you don't specify a node LNN, the command will be applied to the entire cluster.
The following example command disables ARR for the node with the LNN of 2:

isi devices config modify --automatic-replacement-recognition no --node-lnn 2

4. To enable ARR for a specific node, you must perform the following steps through the command-line interface (CLI).
a. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
b. Run the following command:

isi devices config modify --automatic-replacement-recognition yes --node-lnn <node-

lnn>

If you don't specify a node LNN, the command will be applied to the entire cluster.
The following example command enables ARR for the node with the LNN of 2:

isi devices config modify --automatic-replacement-recognition yes --node-lnn 2

Managing drive firmware

If the firmware of any drive in a cluster becomes obsolete, the cluster performance or hardware reliability might be affected. To
ensure overall data integrity, update the drive firmware to the latest revision by installing the drive support package.
Determine whether the drive firmware on your cluster is the latest revision by viewing the status of the drive firmware.

NOTE: It is recommended that you contact PowerScale Technical Support before updating the drive firmware.

Drive firmware update overview

You can update the drive firmware in your nodes using drive support packages.

Drive Support Package

Download and install the drive support package from the Dell OneFS drivers site.
A drive support package provides the following:
● Updates the following drive configuration information for all drives in the cluster:
○ List of supported drives
○ Drive firmware metadata
○ SSD wear monitoring data
○ SAS and SATA settings and attributes
● Automatically updates the drive configuration information for any new or replacement drives before they are formatted and
used in the cluster.
NOTE: For clusters running OneFS 8.0.x and earlier, contact you support representative for assistance with updating the
drive support package.

Install a drive support package

The following instructions are for performing a non-disruptive firmware update (NDFU) with a drive support package (DSP).

1. Go to the Dell EMC Support page that lists all the available versions of the drive support package.
2. Click the latest version of the drive support package and download the file.

62 General cluster administration

 NOTE: If you are unable to download the package, contact Dell EMC Support for assistance.

3. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
4. Copy the downloaded file to the /ifs/data/Isilon_Support directory through SCP, FTP, SMB, NFS, or any other
supported data-access protocols.
5. Install the package by running the following command:
isi_dsp_install /ifs/data/Isilon_Support/Drive_Support_<version>.isi
NOTE:
● You must run the isi_dsp_install command to install the drive support package. Do not use the isi upgrade
patches command.
● Running isi_dsp_install installs the drive support package on the entire cluster.
● The installation process takes care of installing all the necessary files from the drive support package followed by the
uninstallation of the package. You do not need to delete the package after its installation or before installing a later
version.

View drive firmware status

You can view the status of the drive firmware on the cluster to determine whether you need to update the firmware.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Perform one of the following tasks:
● View the drive firmware status of all the nodes. Depending on your version of OneFS, run one of the following
commands:

OneFS 8.0 or isi devices drive firmware list --node-lnn all

later
Earlier than isi drivefirmware status
OneFS 8.0
● To view the drive firmware status of drives on a specific node, run one of the following commands:

OneFS 8.0 or isi devices drive firmware list --node-lnn <node-number>

later
Earlier than isi drivefirmware status -n <node-number>
OneFS 8.0
If a drive firmware update is not required, the Desired FW column is empty.

Update the drive firmware manually

You can update the drive firmware manually; updating the drive firmware ensures overall data integrity.
This procedure explains how to manually update the drive firmware for all drives in a single node.

NOTE: Do not restart or power off nodes when the drive firmware is being updated in a cluster or issues might occur.

1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. To update the drive firmware for all drives in a specific node, run the following command:
isi devices drive firmware update start all --node-lnn <node-number>
Updating the drive firmware of a single drive takes approximately 15 seconds, depending on the drive model.
CAUTION: Wait for all the drives in a node to finish updating before you initiate a firmware update on the
next node.

General cluster administration 63

Verify a drive firmware update
After you update the drive firmware in a node, confirm that the firmware is updated properly and that the affected drives are
operating correctly.
1. Ensure that no drive firmware updates are currently in progress by running the following command:

isi devices drive firmware update list

If a drive is currently being updated, [FW_UPDATE] appears in the status column.

2. Verify that all drives have been updated by running the following command:

isi devices drive firmware list --node-lnn all

If all drives have been updated, the Desired FW column is empty.

3. Verify that all affected drives are operating in a healthy state by running the following command:

isi devices drive list --node-lnn all

If a drive is operating in a healthy state, [HEALTHY] appears in the status column.

Drive firmware status information

You can view information about the status of the drive firmware through the OneFS command-line interface.
The following example shows the output of the isi devices drive firmware list command:

your-cluster-1# isi devices drive firmware list

Lnn Location Firmware Desired Model
------------------------------------------------------
2 Bay 1 A204 - HGST HUSMM1680ASS200
2 Bay 2 A204 - HGST HUSMM1680ASS200
2 Bay 3 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 4 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 5 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 6 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 7 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 8 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 9 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 10 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 11 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
2 Bay 12 MFAOABW0 MFAOAC50 HGST HUS724040ALA640
------------------------------------------------------
Total: 12

Where:

LNN Displays the LNN for the node that contains the drive.
Location Displays the bay number where the drive is installed.
Firmware Displays the version number of the firmware currently running on the drive.
Desired If the drive firmware should be upgraded, displays the version number of the drive firmware that the
firmware should be updated to.
Model Displays the model number of the drive.

NOTE: The isi devices drive firmware list command displays firmware information for the drives in the local
node only. You can display drive firmware information for the entire cluster, not just the local cluster, by running the
following command:
isi devices drive firmware list --node-lnn all

64 General cluster administration

Automatic update of drive firmware
Install the latest drive support package on a node to automatically update the firmware for a new or replacement drive.
The information within the drive support package determines whether the firmware of a drive must be updated before the drive
is formatted and used. If an update is available, the drive is automatically updated with the latest firmware.
NOTE: New and replacement drives added to a cluster are formatted regardless of the status of their firmware revision.
Refer to the Isilon Drive Support Package Release Notes for instructions for viewing current firmware versions and how to
manually perform drive firmware updates.

Managing cluster nodes

You can add and remove nodes from a cluster. You can also shut down or restart the entire cluster.

Add a node to a cluster

You can add a new node to an existing PowerScale cluster.
Before you add a node to a cluster, verify that an internal IP address is available. Add IP addresses as necessary before you add
a new node.
If a new node is running a different version of OneFS than the cluster, the system changes the node version of OneFS to match
the cluster.
NOTE: For specific information about version compatibility between OneFS and PowerScale hardware, refer to the
PowerScale Supportability and Compatibility Guide.
1. Click Cluster Management > Hardware Configuration > Add Nodes.
2. In the Available Nodes table, click Add for the node that you want to add to the cluster.

Remove a node from the cluster

You can remove a node from an OneFS cluster by smartfailing it. The system smartfails the node to ensure that data on the
node is transferred to other nodes in the cluster.
Removing a storage node from a cluster deletes the data from that node and transfers the data to existing nodes. Before the
system deletes the data, the FlexProtect job safely redistributes data across the nodes remaining in the cluster.
1. Navigate to the Cluster Management > Hardware Configuration > Nodes tab.
2. In the Manage Nodes area, select the node that you want to remove and then click More > Smartfail node. When you
remove a storage node, the Cluster Status area displays the smartfail progress. If you remove a non-storage accelerator
node, it is immediately removed from the cluster.
CAUTION: OneFS protects data that is stored on failing nodes or drives through a process called
smartfailing. During the smartfail process, OneFS places a device into quarantine. Data stored on
quarantined devices is read-only. While a device is quarantined, OneFS reprotects the data on the device
by distributing the data to other devices. After all data migration is complete, OneFS logically removes the
device from the cluster, the cluster logically changes its width to the new configuration, and the node or
drive can be physically replaced. OneFS smartfails devices only as a last resort. Although you can manually
smartfail nodes or drives, it is recommended that you first consult Dell Technologies Support. Occasionally
a device might fail before OneFS detects a problem. If a drive fails without being smartfailed, OneFS
automatically starts rebuilding the data to available free space on the cluster. However, because a node
might recover from a failure, if a node fails, OneFS does not start rebuilding data unless the node is logically
removed from the cluster.

General cluster administration 65

Modify the LNN of a node
You can modify the logical node number (LNN) of a node. This procedure is available only through the command-line interface
(CLI).
The nodes within your cluster can be renamed to any name/integer between 1 and 252. By changing the name of your node, you
are resetting the LNN.
NOTE: Although you can specify any integer as an LNN, we recommend that you do not specify an integer greater than
252. Specifying LNNs above 252 can result in significant performance degradation.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Open the isi config command prompt by running the following command:

isi config

3. Run the lnnset command.

The following command switches the LNN of a node from 12 to 73:

lnnset 12 73

4. Enter commit .
You might need to reconnect to your SSH session before the new node name is automatically changed.

Shut down or restart a node

You can shut down or restart individual nodes or all the nodes in an PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > Hardware Configuration > Nodes.
2. In the Nodes area, select one or more nodes by clicking the corresponding check boxes and specify an action:

Shut down Shuts down the node.

Reboot Stops then restarts the node.

Alternatively, select a node, and from the Actions column, perform one of the following options:
● Click More > Shut down node to shut down the node.
● Click More > Reboot node to stop and restart the node.

Upgrading OneFS
Upgrading OneFS can be done using either the web interface or the command line interface and includes a series of tasks that
Administrators must perform prior to, during, and after the upgrade.
There are three options available for upgrading your OneFS cluster: parallel upgrades, rolling upgrades, or simultaneous
upgrades.
For more information about how to plan, prepare, and perform an upgrade on your OneFS cluster, see the PowerScale OneFS
Upgrade Planning and Process Guide.

Patching OneFS
Patches are made available for supported versions of OneFS. Patching OneFS is performed by downloading the latest roll-up
patch (RUP) and installing it on your cluster.
There are three options available for patching a OneFS cluster: parallel patch, rolling patch, or simultaneous patch.
For more information about patching your OneFS cluster, see the PowerScale OneFS Current Patches article.

66 General cluster administration

SupportAssist
SupportAssist is the remote connectivity system for transmitting events, logs, and telemetry from a PowerScale OneFS cluster
to Dell Support.
SupportAssist integrates an Embedded Service Enabler (ESE) into OneFS and can connect to Dell Support directly or through a
supported Secure Connect Gateway (SCG).
SupportAssist is used for the following workflows:

CELOG CELOG sends alerts through the SupportAssist channel to Dell Support.
isi diagnostics The isi diagnostics gather and isi_gather_info commands have a --supportassist
gather option.
License The isi license activation start command uses SupportAssist to connect.
activation
CloudIQ Telemetry data is sent using SupportAssist.
HealthCheck HealthCheck definitions are updated using SupportAssist.
Remote Support Remote Support uses SupportAssist and the Connectivity Hub to assist customers with their clusters.

SupportAssist is recommended for all clusters that can send telemetry data off-cluster and is a replacement for the legacy
connectivity system - Secure Remote Services (SRS).
OneFS clusters can continue to use SRS and setup new connections using SRS. Administrators are encouraged to install and use
SCG v5.x or later, which supports both SRS and SupportAssist.
NOTE: Clusters using IPv6 must continue using SRS. SupportAssist does not support IPv6.

For more information, see the SupportAssist site on Dell support.

SupportAssist Prerequisites
To enable SupportAssist, you must meet the following prerequisites:
● OneFS cluster must be running OneFS 9.5.0.0 (or later) and in a committed status.
● The reporting OneFS cluster has a dedicated IPv4 network.
● If upgrading, have your cluster's access key and pin ready.
● On a new cluster, SupportAssist automatically pulls the hardware key.
● User must belong to a role with ISI_PRIV_REMOTE_SUPPORT read and write access.
● If using Secure Connect Gateway, you must use SCG version 5.x or later.
● If using direct connect, network port 443 and 8443 must be routed to Dell support.
● SRS is disabled. Enabling SupportAssist automatically disables SRS.

Obtaining an Access Key and PIN

When upgrading your cluster, to enable SupportAssist, you must first obtain an Access Key and PIN from Dell support.
To generate your Access Key and PIN, go to the Dell support access key site and enter your information.
For instructions on generating your Access Key, go to the Generate access key instructions page.

NOTE: On newly installed clusters, a hardware key is automatically used instead of an Access Key and PIN.

Enabling SupportAssist overview

To enable SupportAssist, you must perform the following steps:
1. Choose one or more static subnets or pools for outbound communication.
2. Optional: Enable SCG and specify hostname.
3. Obtain an access key and pin from the Dell Support portal.
4. Connect and provision SupportAssist

General cluster administration 67

 NOTE: SRS users, enabling SupportAssist on your OneFS cluster permanently disables SRS.

Enabling SupportAssist - connect directly to Dell support

Enable SupportAssist to connect directly to Dell support by performing the following steps:
1. On the Cluster Management > General settings screen, click the SupportAssist tab.
2. Click the Connect SupportAssist button.
3. To accept the Telemetry Notice, check the box and click the Accept button.
4. Enter the Primary Support Contact information and click the Next button.
5. Select the subnet and pool to use when connecting.
6. Select Connect directly.
7. Enter the Access key and PIN.
NOTE: On newly installed clusters, a hardware key is automatically used instead of an Access Key and PIN.

8. Select if you want to enable Remote support, CloudIQ telemetry data, and Automatic case creation.
9. Click the Finish Setup button.

Disabling SupportAssist Dell remote support

Disable SupportAssist remote support by performing the following steps:
1. Log into the OneFS WebUI.
2. On the Cluster Management > General settings screen, click the SupportAssist tab.
3. Click the Disable SupportAssist button.
4. The following message displays: Disabling SupportAssist will stop all secure remote monitoring
such as automated issue detection and case creation. Are you sure?
5. Click Yes.

Enabling SupportAssist - Secure Connect Gateway

Enable SupportAssist to connect to a Secure Connect Gateway by performing the following steps:
1. On the Cluster Management > General settings screen, click the SupportAssist tab.
2. Click the Connect SupportAssist button.
3. To accept the Telemetry Notice, check the box and click the Accept button.
4. Enter the Primary Support Contact information and click the Next button.
5. Select the subnet and pool to use when connecting.
6. Select Connect via Secure Connect Gateway.
7. Enter the gateway host and gateway port.
8. Enter the Access key and PIN.
NOTE: On newly installed clusters, a hardware key is automatically used instead of an Access Key and PIN.

9. Select if you want to enable Remote support, CloudIQ telemetry data, and Automatic case creation.
10. Click the Finish Setup button.

Viewing SupportAssist settings overview

Once enabled, you can view SupportAssist status, pools and subnets used, and connection type.

68 General cluster administration

Viewing SupportAssist settings
To view the SupportAssist status and options, in the Cluster Management > General Settings window, click the
SupportAssist tab.

Configuring SupportAssist overview

SupportAssist allows you to configure the following:
● Contact information
● Subnets and pools
● SCG options
● Remote support options
● Telemetry options

Configuring SupportAssist Contact Information

1. In the Cluster Configuration > General Settings window, click the SupportAssist tab.
2. Click the Support Contact tab.
3. Enter the following Primary contact information:
● First name
● Last name
● Email
● Phone
● Preferred language

4. (Optional) To add information for a secondary contact, click the Add secondary contact link.

Configuring SupportAssist subnets and pools

1. In the Cluster Configuration > General Settings window, click the SupportAssist tab.
2. Click the Connection Type tab.
3. Enter the following connection information:
● Network Pools
● Gateway host
● Gateway port
● Backup gateway host
● Backup gateway port

Configuring Remote Support

1. In the Cluster Configuration > General Settings window, click the SupportAssist tab.
2. To enable remote support for use with SupportAssist, click the Enable Remote support toggle.
3. To enable automatic case creation, click the Enable SupportAssist to create support cases toggle.

Configuring Telemetry
1. To view the telemetry options, in the Cluster Management > General Settings window, click the SupportAssist tab.
2. To enable telemetry data to be sent to CloudIQ, in the Cluster Management > General Settings window, click the Enable
CloudIQ telemetry data button.

General cluster administration 69

SRS Summary
OneFS allows remote support through Secure Remote Services (SRS), which monitors the cluster, and with permission,
provides remote access for PowerScale Technical Support personnel to gather cluster data and troubleshoot issues. SRS is a
secure, Customer Support system that includes 24x7 remote monitoring and secure authentication with AES 256-bit encryption
and RSA digital certificates.
Although SRS is not a licensed feature, it must be enabled if you are using in product activation for your OneFS license.
NOTE: SupportAssist is replacing SRS, but SRS is still available to use for current OneFS clusters. It is recommended that
new OneFS clusters use the SupportAssist service, as SRS will eventually be unsupported.
If you are using an evaluation license on the cluster, it is not possible to enable SRS. To evaluate SRS on an evaluation cluster,
ask Technical Support for help with obtaining a signed license file.
If you configure and enable remote support, PowerScale Technical Support personnel can establish a secure SSH session with
the cluster through the SRS connection. Remote access to the cluster is only in the context of an open support case. You
can allow or deny the remote session request by PowerScale Technical Support personnel. During remote sessions, support
personnel can run remote support scripts that gather diagnostic data about cluster settings and operations. Diagnostic data is
sent over the secure SRS connection to Dell Technologies SRS.
The remote support user credentials are required for access to the cluster. The remote support user is a separate user, not a
general cluster user, or a System Admin user. OneFS does not store the required remote support user credentials.
A complete description of SRS features and functionality is available in the most recent version of the Secure Remote Services
Technical Description. More SRS documentation is available on Dell Technologies Support by Product.

SRS Telemetry
SRS Telemetry is enabled when Secure Remote Services is enabled.
SRS Telemetry replaces phone home functionality:
● isi_phone_home was deprecated in OneFS 8.2.1.
● isi_phone_home was disabled in OneFS 8.2.2.
SRS Telemetry gathers configuration data (gconfig), system controls (sysctls), directory paths, and statistics at the cluster
level. SRS Telemetry also gathers API endpoints and statistics at the node level. This data is sent through Secure Remote
Services for use by CloudIQ.
For more information about SRS Telemetry, contact your OneFS support representative.

Obtain signed OneFS license file for evaluation clusters

If a cluster was acquired for evaluation or proof of concept (POC) purposes, you still need a signed OneFS license file before
SRS can be enabled. Evaluation licenses are used for evaluation or proof of concept purposes.
To obtain a signed OneFS license file, follow these steps:
1. Generate a license activation file as described earlier in this guide.
2. Open a support case with the Dell licensing team.
3. Include the following information:
● Sales order number(s)
● Your license activation file
The licensing team will generate the signed license file and send it in an email.

4. Upload the signed license file to your cluster, as described earlier in this guide.

70 General cluster administration

Configuring and Enabling SRS Overview
You can configure support for Secure Remote Services (SRS) on the PowerScale cluster. SRS is now configured for the entire
cluster with a single registration.
When you enable support for SRS on a cluster, you can optionally create rules for remote support connections to the
PowerScale cluster with the SRS Policy Manager. Details on the Policy Manager are available in the most current Secure
Remote Services Installation Guide.
You can implement firewall rules to block SSH from the SRS gateway(s) to the PowerScale nodes. Firewall rules ensure that Dell
EMC has no remote access to the cluster, but outbound cluster alerts and telemetry can still be serviced by the SRS gateways
and sent to Dell EMC.

Configuring SRS
You can configure and enable support for Secure Remote Services (SRS) on a PowerScale cluster in the OneFS web UI.
Pre-requisites:
● Clusters running OneFS 8.1.x or later must have SRS Gateway Server 3.x installed and configured.
● Clusters running OneFS 9.0.0.0 with PowerScale F200 or PowerScale F600 nodes must have SRS v3 installed.
● Clusters running OneFS 9.1.0.0 and later must have SRS v3 installed.
● The IP address pools that handle gateway connections must exist in the system and must belong to a subnet under
groupnet0, which is the default system groupnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Remote Support.
2. If the OneFS license is unsigned, click Update license now and follow the instructions in Licensing.
3. SRS must be configured before it can be enabled. To configure SRS, click Configure SRS.
4. In the Primary SRS gateway address field, type an IPv4 address or the name of the primary gateway server.
5. In Secondary SRS gateway address field, type an IPv4 address or the name of the secondary gateway server.
6. In the Manage subnets and pools section, select the network pools that you want to manage.
7. To send an alert if the cluster loses connection, check the Create an alert if the cluster loses its connection with SRS
checkbox.
8. To save the settings, click Save Configuration.

SRS Telemetry Terms

In OneFS 9.0.0.0 and later, when SRS is enabled, SRS Telemetry is also enabled. In order to enable SRS, you must agree to the
SRS Telemetry terms.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Remote Support.
2. To agree to the SRS Telemetry terms, click terms and conditions, read the terms in the window, and click I agree.
NOTE: You can disable SRS Telemetry once SRS is enabled.

Enabling SRS
SRS must be configured before it can be enabled.
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Remote Support.
2. Click Enable SRS to connect to the gateway.
The login dialog box opens.
3. Type the User name and Password, and click Enable SRS.
If the User name or Password is incorrect, or if the user is not registered with Dell EMC, an error message is generated. Look
for the u'message section in the error text.

General cluster administration 71

 Figure 1. Invalid username and password error

Diagnostic commands and scripts

After you enable remote support through SRS, Dell Technologies Support personnel can request diagnostic commands and
scripts that gather cluster data and then upload the data.
Scripts are based on the isi diagnostics gather and isi diagnostics netlogger tools and can be located in
the /ifs/data/Isilon_Support/ directory on each node.
NOTE: The isi diagnostics gather and isi diagnostics netlogger commands replace the
isi_gather_info command.

This tool sends information about a cluster to PowerScale Technical Support.

To see a full list of commands and subcommands that remote support scripts perform, see isi diagnostics gather and
isi diagnostics netlogger in the CLI Reference guide for your version of OneFS.
At the request of a Dell Technologies Support representative, scripts can be run automatically to collect information about
the configuration settings and operations of a cluster. Information is sent to SRS over the secure SRS connection, so that it
is available for Dell Technologies Support personnel to analyze. Remote support scripts do not affect cluster services or data
availability.

Table 1. Remote Support scripts

Action Description
Clean watch folder Clears the contents of /var/crash.

Get application data Collects and uploads information about OneFS

application programs.
Generate dashboard file daily Generates daily dashboard information.
Generate dashboard file sequence Generates dashboard information in the sequence that
it occurred.
Get ABR data (as built record) Collects as-built information about hardware.
Get ATA control and GMirror status Collects system output and invokes a script when it
receives an event that corresponds to a predetermined
eventid.

Get cluster data Collects and uploads information about overall cluster
configuration and operations.
Get cluster events Gets the output of existing critical events and uploads
the information.
Get cluster status Collects and uploads cluster status details.
Get contact info Extracts contact information and uploads a text file
that contains it.
Get contents (var/crash) Uploads the contents of /var/crash.

Get job status Collects and uploads details on a job that is being
monitored.

72 General cluster administration

Table 1. Remote Support scripts (continued)
Action Description
Get domain data Collects and uploads information about the Active
Directory Services (ADS) domain membership for a
cluster.
Get file system data Collects and uploads information about the state and
health of the OneFS /ifs/ file system.

Get IB data Collects and uploads information about the

configuration and operation of the InfiniBand back-end
network.
Get logs data Collects and uploads only the most recent cluster log
information.
Get messages Collects and uploads active /var/log/messages
files.
Get network data Collects and uploads information about cluster-wide
and node-specific network configuration settings and
operations.
Get NFS clients Runs a command to check if nodes are being used as
NFS clients.
Get node data Collects and uploads node-specific configuration,
status, and operational information.
Get protocol data Collects and uploads network status information and
configuration settings for the NFS, SMB, HDFS, FTP,
and HTTP protocols.
Get Pcap client stats Collects and uploads client statistics.
Get readonly status Warns if the chassis is open and uploads a text file of
the event information.
Get usage data Collects and uploads current and historical information
about node performance and resource usage.

Enabling SRS Telemetry

SRS Telemetry is enabled when Secure Remote Services is enabled.
You can manually enable SRS Telemetry as follows:
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Remote Support.
2. Click Configure SRS Telemetry and CloudIQ.
3. To enable SRS Telemetry, check the box labeled Enable Telemetry and send data to CloudIQ

Disabling SRS Telemetry

SRS Telemetry is enabled when Secure Remote Services is enabled.
You can disable SRS Telemetry as follows:
1. Click Cluster Management > General Settings > Remote Support.
2. Click Configure SRS Telemetry and CloudIQ.
3. To disable SRS Telemetry, uncheck the box labeled Enable Telemetry and send data to CloudIQ
NOTE: If SRS Telemetry is disabled, CloudIQ cannot provide analytics for your cluster.

General cluster administration 73

 4
Access zones
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Data Security overview
• Base directory guidelines
• Access zones best practices
• Access zones on a SyncIQ secondary cluster
• Access zone limits
• Quality of service
• Zone-based Role-based Access Control (zRBAC)
• Zone-specific authentication providers
• Managing access zones

Data Security overview

The default view of a PowerScale cluster is that of one physical machine. But you can partition a cluster into multiple virtual
containers called access zones. Access zones allow you to isolate data and control who can access data in each zone.
Access zones support configuration settings for authentication and identity management services on a cluster. Access zones
enable you to configure authentication providers and provision protocol directories such as SMB shares and NFS exports on a
zone-by-zone basis. Creating an access zone automatically creates a local provider, which allows you to configure each access
zone with a list of local users and groups. You can also authenticate through a different authentication provider in each access
zone.
To control data access, you associate the access zone with a groupnet. A groupnet is a top-level networking container that
manages DNS client connection settings and contains subnets and IP address pools. When you create an access zone, you
must specify a groupnet. If a groupnet is not specified, the access zone references the default groupnet. Multiple access zones
can reference a single groupnet. You can direct incoming connections to the access zone through a specific IP address pool in
the groupnet. Associating an access zone with an IP address pool restricts authentication to the associated access zone and
reduces the number of available and accessible SMB shares and NFS exports.
An advantage to multiple access zones is the ability to configure audit protocol access for individual access zones. You can
modify the default list of successful and failed protocol audit events and then generate reports through a third-party tool for an
individual access zone.
A cluster includes an access zone that is named System where you manage all aspects of a cluster and other access zones. By
default, all cluster IP addresses connect to the System zone. Role-based access, which primarily allows configuration actions,
is available through only the System zone. All administrators, including those given privileges by a role, must connect to the
System zone to configure a cluster. The System zone is automatically configured to reference the default groupnet on the
cluster, which is groupnet0.
Configuration management of a non-System access zone is not permitted through SSH, the OneFS API, or the web
administration interface.

Base directory guidelines

A base directory defines the file system tree that is exposed by an access zone. The access zone cannot grant access to any
files outside of the base directory. Assign a base directory to each access zone.
Base directories restrict path options for several features such as SMB shares, NFS exports, the HDFS root directory, and the
local provider home directory template.
Data isolation is required within an access zone. It is recommended that you create a unique base directory path that is not
identical to or does not overlap another base directory, except for the System access zone. For example, do not specify /ifs/

74 Access zones
data/hr as the base directory for both the zone2 and zone3 access zones. Or if /ifs/data/hr is assigned to zone2, do not
assign /ifs/data/hr/personnel to zone3.
OneFS supports overlapping data between access zones for cases where your workflows require shared data. However, the
added complexity to the access zone configuration might lead to future issues with client access. For the best results from
overlapping data between access zones, it is recommended that the access zones also share the same authentication providers.
Shared providers ensures that users will have consistent identity information when accessing the same data through different
access zones.
If you cannot configure the same authentication providers for access zones with shared data, ensure the following:
● Select Active Directory as the authentication provider in each access zone. This causes files to store globally unique SIDs as
the on-disk identity, eliminating the chance of users from different zones gaining access to each other's data.
● Avoid selecting local, LDAP, and NIS as the authentication providers in the access zones. These authentication providers use
UIDs and GIDs, which are not guaranteed to be globally unique. This results in a high probability that users from different
zones will be able to access each other's data.
● Set the on-disk identity to native, or preferably, to SID. When user mappings exist between Active Directory and UNIX users
or if the Services for Unix option is enabled for the Active Directory provider, OneFS stores SIDs as the on-disk
identity instead of UIDs.

Access zones best practices

You can avoid configuration problems on the PowerScale cluster when creating access zones by following best practices
guidelines.

Best practice Details

Create unique base directories. To achieve data isolation, the base directory path of each
access zone should be unique and should not overlap or be
nested inside the base directory of another access zone.
Overlapping is allowed, but should only be used if your
workflows require shared data.
Separate the function of the System zone from other access Reserve the System zone for configuration access, and create
zones. additional zones for data access. Move current data out of the
System zone and into a new access zone.
Create access zones to isolate data access for different Do not create access zones if a workflow requires data
clients or users. sharing between different classes of clients or users.
Assign only one authentication provider of each type to each An access zone is limited to a single Active Directory
access zone. provider; however, OneFS allows multiple LDAP, NIS, and
file authentication providers in each access zone. It is
recommended that you assign only one type of each provider
per access zone in order to simplify administration.
Avoid overlapping UID or GID ranges for authentication The potential for zone access conflicts is slight but possible if
providers in the same access zone. overlapping UIDs/GIDs are present in the same access zone.

Access zones on a SyncIQ secondary cluster

You can create access zones on a SyncIQ secondary cluster that is used for backup and disaster recovery, with some limitations.
If you have an active SyncIQ license, you can maintain a secondary PowerScale cluster for backup and failover purposes in case
your primary server should go offline. When you run a replication job on the primary server, file data is replicated to the backup
server. That includes directory paths and other metadata that is associated with those files.
However, system configuration settings, such as access zones, are not replicated to the secondary server. In a failover scenario,
the configuration settings of the primary and secondary clusters should be similar, if not identical.
Usually, including with access zones, it is recommended that you configure system settings before you run a SyncIQ replication
job. The reason is that a replication job places target directories in read-only mode. If you attempt to create an access zone
where the base directory is already in read-only mode, OneFS generates an error message.

Access zones 75
Access zone limits
You can follow access zone limits guidelines to help size the workloads on the OneFS system.
If you configure multiple access zones on a PowerScale cluster, limits guidelines are recommended for best system performance.
The limits that are described in the PowerScale OneFS Technical Specifications Guide are recommended for heavy enterprise
workflows on a cluster, treating each access zone as a separate physical server. The Technical Specifications Guide and related
PowerScale documentation are available on Dell Online Support.

Quality of service
You can set upper bounds on quality of service by assigning specific physical resources to each access zone.
Quality of service addresses physical hardware performance characteristics that can be measured, improved, and sometimes
guaranteed. Characteristics that are measured for quality of service include but are not limited to throughput rates, CPU usage,
and disk capacity. When you share physical hardware in a PowerScale cluster across multiple virtual instances, competition
exists for the following services:
● CPU
● Memory
● Network bandwidth
● Disk I/O
● Disk capacity
Access zones do not provide logical quality of service guarantees to these resources, but you can partition these resources
between access zones on a single cluster. The following table describes a few ways to partition resources to improve quality of
service:

Use Notes
NICs You can assign specific NICs on specific nodes to an
IP address pool that is associated with an access zone.
By assigning these NICs, you can determine the nodes
and interfaces that are associated with an access zone.
This enables the separation of CPU, memory, and network
bandwidth.
SmartPools SmartPools are separated into multiple tiers of high, medium,
and low performance. The data written to a SmartPool is
written only to the disks in the nodes of that pool.
Associating an IP address pool with only the nodes of a single
SmartPool enables partitioning of disk I/O resources.

SmartQuotas Through SmartQuotas, you can limit disk capacity by a user

or a group or in a directory. By applying a quota to an access
zone's base directory, you can limit disk capacity that is used
in that access zone.

Zone-based Role-based Access Control (zRBAC)

You can assign roles and a subset of privileges to users on a per-access-zone basis.
Role-based Access Control (RBAC) supports granting users with privileges and the ability to perform certain tasks. Tasks can
be performed through the Platform API, such as creating or modifying or viewing NFS exports, SMB shares, authentication
providers, and various cluster settings.
Users may want to perform these tasks inside a single access zone, enabling a local administrator to create SMB shares for
a specific access zone, for example, but disallowing that administrator from modifying configurations that would affect other
access zones.
Previous to zRBAC, only users in the System Access Zone were given privileges. These users could view and modify
configurations in all other access zones. Thus, a user with a specific privilege was a global administrator for configuration
that was accessible through that privilege.

76 Access zones
zRBAC enables you to assign roles and a subset of privileges that must be assigned on a per-access-zone basis. Administrative
tasks that the zone-aware privileges covers can be delegated to an administrator of a specific access zone. As a result, you get
the ability to create a local administrator who is responsible for a single access zone. A user in the System Access Zone can
affect all other access zones, and remains a global administrator.
Use the isi auth privileges command to list the available privileges for an access zone:

isi auth privileges --zone <zone name>

Where <zone name> is the zone whose privileges you want to list. For example, the following command lists the available
privileges for a zone named zone3:

isi auth privileges --zone zone3

Integrated roles in non-System zones

The table in this section lists and describes the integrated roles and their privileges provided in non-System access zones.

Role Description Privileges

BasicUserRole Provides limited permissions ● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI
appropriate for APEX File ● ISI_PRIV_AUTH
Storage Servicesusers. ● ISI_PRIV_AUTH_PROVIDERS
● ISI_PRIV_AUTH_SETTINGS_ACLS
● ISI_PRIV_AUTH_SETTINGS_GLOBAL
● ISI_PRIV_AUTH_ZONES
● ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER
● ISI_PRIV_HDFS
● ISI_PRIV_HDFS_RACKS
● ISI_PRIV_HDFS_SETTINGS
● ISI_PRIV_NFS
● ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS
● ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_GLOBAL
● ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_ZONE
● ISI_PRIV_S3
● ISI_PRIV_S3_MYKEYS
● ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS
● ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS_GLOBAL
● ISI_PRIV_SMB
● ISI_PRIV_SMB_SESSIONS
● ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS
● ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS_GLOBAL
● ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS_SHARE
● ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS
ZoneAdmin Allows administration of ● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI
configuration aspects that are ● ISI_PRIV_AUDIT
related to the current access ● ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER
zone.
● ISI_PRIV_HDFS
● ISI_PRIV_NFS
● ISI_PRIV_PAPI_CONFIG
● ISI_PRIV_S3
● ISI_PRIV_SMB
● ISI_PRIV_SWIFT
● ISI_PRIV_VCENTER
● ISI_PRIV_NS_TRAVERSE
● ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS

Access zones 77
Role Description Privileges
ZoneSecurityAd Allows administration of ● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI
min security configuration aspects ● ISI_PRIV_AUTH
that are related to the current ● ISI_PRIV_ROLE
access zone.

NOTE: These roles do not have any default users who are automatically assigned to them.

Zone-specific authentication providers

Some information about how authentication providers work with zRBAC.
Authentication providers are global objects in a OneFS cluster. However, as part of the zRBAC feature, an authentication
provider is implicitly associated with the access zone from which it was created, and has certain behaviors that are based on
that association.
● All access zones can view and use an authentication provider that is created from the System zone. However, only a request
from the System access zone can modify or delete it.
● An authentication provider that is created from (or on behalf of) a non-System access zone can only be viewed or modified
or deleted by that access zone and the System zone.
● A local authentication provider is implicitly created whenever an access zone is created, and is associated with that access
zone.
● A local authentication provider for a non-System access zone may no longer be used by another access zone. If you would
like to share a local authentication provider among access zones, then it must be the System zone's local provider.
● The name of an authentication provider is still global. Therefore, authentication providers must have unique names. Thus, you
cannot create two LDAP providers named ldap5 in different access zones, for example.
● The Kerberos provider can only be created from the System access zone.
● Creating two distinct Active Directory (AD) providers to the same AD may require the use of the AD multi-instancing
feature. To assign a unique name to the AD provider, use --instance.

Managing access zones

You can create access zones on a PowerScale cluster, view and modify access zone settings, and delete access zones.

Create an access zone

You can create an access zone and define a base directory and authentication providers.
1. Click Access > Access Zones.
2. Click Create an access zone.
3. In the Zone Name field, type a name for the access zone.
4. In the Zone Base Directory field, type or browse to the base directory path for the access zone.
5. If the directory you set does not exist in the system, select the Create zone base directory if it does not exist checkbox.
6. From the Groupnet list, select a groupnet to associate with the access zone. The access zone can only be associated with
IP address pools and authentication providers that share the selected groupnet.
7. Optional: Click a provider name in the Available authentication providers list and click Add to move the provider to the
Selected authentication providers list.
8. Click Create Zone.
9. If the directory you set overlaps with the base directory of another access zone, click Create at the system prompt to
confirm that you want to allow access to users in both access zones.
Before users can connect to an access zone, you must associate it with an IP address pool.

Related concepts
Data Security overview
Managing access zones

78 Access zones
Related tasks
Associate an IP address pool with an access zone

Assign an overlapping base directory

You can create overlapping base directories between access zones for cases where your workflows require shared data.
1. Click Access > Access Zones.
2. Click View/Edit next to the access zone that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Access Zone Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays theEdit Access Zone Details window.
4. In the Zone Base Directory field, type or browse to the base directory path for the access zone.
5. Click Save Changes.
The system prompts you to confirm that the directory you set overlaps with the base directory of another access zone.
6. Click Update at the system prompt to confirm that you want to allow data access to users in both access zones.
7. Click Close.
Before users can connect to an access zone, you must associate it with an IP address pool.

Related concepts
Data Security overview
Managing access zones

Manage authentication providers

You can add and manage authentication providers.
1. Click Access > Authentication providers.
2. Click the tab for the Authentication provider type you would like to manage.
3. Optional: To create a provider, click Add a Provider to open the Add a Provider window and enter the necessary
information.
a. Click Add Provider to create the provider with the information you provided.
4. To edit a provider, click View/Edit next to the provider you want to edit.
a. Once you have made your edits, click Edit provider to save your changes.

Manage authentication providers in an access zone

You can add and remove authentication providers to an access zone and manage the order in which the providers are checked
during the authentication process.
1. Click Access > Access Zones.
2. Click View/Edit next to the access zone that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Access Zone Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Access Zone Details window.
4. Optional: To add a provider to the access zone, click a provider name in the Available authentication providers list and
click Add.
a. To change the order of the providers, in the Selected authentication providers list, click the up or down arrows.
5. To remove the provider from the access zone, click a provider name in the Selected authentication providers list and
click Remove.
6. To save your updates, click Save changes.

Related concepts
Data Security overview

Access zones 79
Managing access zones

Associate an IP address pool with an access zone

You can associate an IP address pool with an access zone to ensure that clients can connect to the access zone only through
the range of IP addresses assigned to the pool.
The IP address pool must belong to the same groupnet referenced by the access zone.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the Access Zone list, select the access zone you want to associate with the pool.
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Data Security overview
Managing access zones

Modify an access zone

You can modify the properties of any access zone with some exceptions: you cannot change the name of the built-in System
zone, and you cannot modify the selected groupnet.
1. Click Access > Access Zones.
2. Click View/Edit next to the access zone that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Access Zone Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays theEdit Access Zone Details window.
4. Modify the settings you want, click Save Changes, and then click Close.

Related concepts
Data Security overview
Managing access zones

Delete an access zone

You can delete any access zone except the built-in System zone. When you delete an access zone, all associated authentication
providers remain available to other zones, but IP addresses are not reassigned to other zones. SMB shares, NFS exports, and
HDFS data paths are deleted when you delete an access zone; however, the directories and data still exist, and you can map
new shares, exports, or paths in another access zone.
1. Click Access > Access Zones.
2. From the table of access zones, click Delete next to the access zone that you want to delete.
3. In the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Data Security overview
Managing access zones

View a list of access zones

You can view a list of all access zones on the cluster.
1. Click Access > Access Zones.

80 Access zones
2. Click View/Edit next to the access zone that you want to view.
The system displays the View Access Zone Details window.
3. Click Close.

Related concepts
Data Security overview
Managing access zones

Modify a role in an access zone

You can modify zone-level roles.
You can only add existing users to a role: the modify role process does not create users for you.
The role workflow navigation bar appears across the top of each role task window. The navigation bar indicates each step in the
update process:

Basic settings > Members > Privileges > Summary

OneFS highlights each step as you go. To return to a previous step, click that step in the navigation bar.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. In the Roles area, select a role and click View / Edit.
The Edit role details window appears. The workflow navigation bar Basic settings step is highlighted.
3. Confirm the role name and description and then click Next.
The Members window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
4. To verify or add role members, click Add Member.
The Search member dialog box appears.
5. Select one of following options:
● Users
● Groups
● Well-known SIDs
6. If you selected User or Group, locate the user or group through one of the following methods:
● Type the Username or Group Name you want to search for in the text field.
● Select the authentication provider you want to search for from the Providers list. Only providers that are currently
configured and enabled on the cluster are listed.
7. Click Search.
A list of users or groups appears in the Search member window.
8. To add a user or group, select a user name, group name, or a well-known SID from the search results to add as members to
the role.
9. Click Select user.
10. From the Current access zone list, select the appropriate zone-level role that you want to modify.
The roles that are associated with that access zone is displayed.
11. Modify the members as needed and then click Next.
The Privileges window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
12. Modify the privileges as needed by clicking the appropriate permissions in the Permission column.
Permissions are - (no permission), R (read), X (run), and W (write).
a. To assign subprivileges, click the down arrow of the parent privilege to view and assign subprivileges.
b. When you finish, click Next.
The Summary window appears.
13. Review the modified role, and then click Submit.
14. Click Close.

Access zones 81
 5
Authentication
Topics:
• Authentication overview
• Authentication provider features
• Security Identifier (SID) history overview
• Supported authentication providers
• Active Directory
• LDAP
• NIS
• Kerberos authentication
• File provider
• Local provider
• Multifactor authentication (MFA)
• Single sign-on overview
• Multi-instance active directory
• LDAP public keys
• Managing Active Directory providers
• Managing LDAP providers
• Managing NIS providers
• Managing MIT Kerberos authentication
• Managing file providers
• Managing local users and groups
• Managing SSO

Authentication overview
You can manage authentication settings for your cluster, including authentication providers, Active Directory domains, LDAP,
NIS, and Kerberos authentication, file and local providers, multi-factor authentication, and more.

Authentication provider features

You can configure authentication providers for your environment.
Authentication providers support a mix of the features described in the following table.

Feature Description
Authentication All authentication providers support cleartext authentication.
You can configure some providers to support NTLM or
Kerberos authentication also.
Users and groups OneFS provides the ability to manage users and groups
directly on the cluster.
Netgroups Specific to NFS, netgroups restrict access to NFS exports.
UNIX-centric user and group properties Login shell, home directory, UID, and GID. Missing information
is supplemented by configuration templates or additional
authentication providers.

82 Authentication
Feature Description
Windows-centric user and group properties NetBIOS domain and SID. Missing information is supplemented
by configuration templates.

Related concepts
Authentication overview

Security Identifier (SID) history overview

SID history preserves the membership and access rights of users and groups during an Active Directory domain migration.
Security identifier (SID) history preserves the membership and access rights of users and groups during an Active Directory
domain migration. When an object is moved to a new domain, the new domain generates a new SID with a unique prefix and
records the previous SID information in an LDAP field. This process ensures that users and groups retain the same access rights
and privileges in the new domain that they had in the previous domain.
Note the following when working with historical SIDS.
● Use historical SIDs only to maintain historical file access and authentication privileges.
● Do not use historical SIDs to add new users, groups, or roles.
● Always use the current object SID as defined by the domain to modify a user or to add a user to any role or group.

Supported authentication providers

You can configure local and remote authentication providers to authenticate or deny user access to a cluster.
The following table compares features that are available with each of the authentication providers that OneFS supports. In
the following table, an x indicates that a feature is fully supported by a provider; an asterisk (*) indicates that additional
configuration or support from another provider is required.

Authentication NTLM Kerberos User/group Netgroup UNIX Windows

provider management s propertie propertie
s (RFC s
2307)
Active Directory x x * x
LDAP * x x x *
NIS x x
Local x x x x
File x x x
MIT Kerberos x * * *

Related concepts
Authentication overview

Active Directory
Active Directory is a Microsoft implementation of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Kerberos, and DNS
technologies that can store information about network resources. Active Directory can serve many functions, but the primary
reason for joining the cluster to an Active Directory domain is to perform user and group authentication.
You can join the cluster to an Active Directory (AD) domain by specifying the fully qualified domain name, which can be
resolved to an IPv4 or an IPv6 address, and a user name with join permission. When the cluster joins an AD domain, a single
AD machine account is created. The machine account establishes a trust relationship with the domain and enables the cluster
to authenticate and authorize users in the Active Directory forest. By default, the machine account is named the same as the
cluster. If the cluster name is more than 15 characters long, the name is hashed and displayed after joining the domain.

Authentication 83
OneFS supports NTLM and Microsoft Kerberos for authentication of Active Directory domain users. NTLM client credentials
are obtained from the login process and then presented in an encrypted challenge/response format to authenticate. Microsoft
Kerberos client credentials are obtained from a key distribution center (KDC) and then presented when establishing server
connections. For greater security and performance, we recommend that you implement Kerberos, according to Microsoft
guidelines, as the primary authentication protocol for Active Directory.
Each Active Directory provider must be associated with a groupnet. The groupnet is a top-level networking container that
manages hostname resolution against DNS nameservers and contains subnets and IP address pools. The groupnet specifies
which networking properties the Active Directory provider will use when communicating with external servers. The groupnet
associated with the Active Directory provider cannot be changed. Instead you must delete the Active Directory provider and
create it again with the new groupnet association.
You can add an Active Directory provider to an access zone as an authentication method for clients connecting through
the access zone. OneFS supports multiple instances of Active Directory on a PowerScale cluster; however, you can assign
only one Active Directory provider per access zone. The access zone and the Active Directory provider must reference the
same groupnet. Configure multiple Active Directory instances only to grant access to multiple sets of mutually-untrusted
domains. Otherwise, configure a single Active Directory instance if all domains have a trust relationship. You can discontinue
authentication through an Active Directory provider by removing the provider from associated access zones.

Related concepts
Authentication overview
Managing Active Directory providers

LDAP
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a networking protocol that enables you to define, query, and modify
directory services and resources.
OneFS can authenticate users and groups against an LDAP repository in order to grant them access to the cluster. OneFS
supports Kerberos authentication for an LDAP provider.
The LDAP service supports the following features:
● Users, groups, and netgroups.
● Configurable LDAP schemas. For example, the ldapsam schema allows NTLM authentication over the SMB protocol for users
with Windows-like attributes.
● Simple bind authentication, with and without TLS.
● Redundancy and load balancing across servers with identical directory data.
● Multiple LDAP provider instances for accessing servers with different user data.
● Encrypted passwords.
● IPv4 and IPv6 server URIs.
Each LDAP provider must be associated with a groupnet. The groupnet is a top-level networking container that manages
hostname resolution against DNS nameservers and contains subnets and IP address pools. The groupnet specifies which
networking properties the LDAP provider will use when communicating with external servers. The groupnet associated with
the LDAP provider cannot be changed. Instead you must delete the LDAP provider and create it again with the new groupnet
association.
You can add an LDAP provider to an access zone as an authentication method for clients connecting through the access
zone. An access zone may include at most one LDAP provider. The access zone and the LDAP provider must reference the
same groupnet. You can discontinue authentication through an LDAP provider by removing the provider from associated access
zones.

Related concepts
Authentication overview
Managing LDAP providers

84 Authentication
NIS
The Network Information Service (NIS) provides authentication and identity uniformity across local area networks. OneFS
includes an NIS authentication provider that enables you to integrate the cluster with your NIS infrastructure.
NIS, designed by Sun Microsystems, can authenticate users and groups when they access the cluster. The NIS provider exposes
the passwd, group, and netgroup maps from an NIS server. Hostname lookups are also supported. You can specify multiple
servers for redundancy and load balancing.
Each NIS provider must be associated with a groupnet. The groupnet is a top-level networking container that manages
hostname resolution against DNS nameservers and contains subnets and IP address pools. The groupnet specifies which
networking properties the NIS provider will use when communicating with external servers. The groupnet associated with
the NIS provider cannot be changed. Instead you must delete the NIS provider and create it again with the new groupnet
association.
You can add an NIS provider to an access zone as an authentication method for clients connecting through the access zone. An
access zone may include at most one NIS provider. The access zone and the NIS provider must reference the same groupnet.
You can discontinue authentication through an NIS provider by removing the provider from associated access zones.

NOTE: NIS is different from NIS+, which OneFS does not support.

Related concepts
Authentication overview
Managing NIS providers

Kerberos authentication
Kerberos is a network authentication provider that negotiates encryption tickets for securing a connection. OneFS supports
Microsoft Kerberos and MIT Kerberos authentication providers on a cluster. If you configure an Active Directory provider,
support for Microsoft Kerberos authentication is provided automatically. MIT Kerberos works independently of Active Directory.
For MIT Kerberos authentication, you define an administrative domain, also called a realm. Within this realm, an authentication
server has the authority to authenticate a user, host, or service; the server can resolve to either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. You
can optionally define a Kerberos domain to allow additional domain extensions to be associated with a realm.
The authentication server in a Kerberos environment is called the Key Distribution Center (KDC) and distributes encrypted
tickets. When a user authenticates with an MIT Kerberos provider within a realm, a cryptographic ticket-granting ticket (TGT) is
created. The TGT enables user access to a service principal name (SPN).
Each MIT Kerberos provider is associated with a groupnet. The groupnet is a top-level networking container that manages
hostname resolution against DNS nameservers. It contains subnets and IP address pools. The groupnet specifies which
networking properties the Kerberos provider uses when it communicates with external servers. The groupnet associated with
the Kerberos provider cannot be changed. Instead, delete the Kerberos provider and create it again with the new groupnet
association.
You can add an MIT Kerberos provider to an access zone as an authentication method for clients connecting through the
access zone. An access zone may include at most one MIT Kerberos provider. The access zone and the Kerberos provider must
reference the same groupnet. You can discontinue authentication through an MIT Kerberos provider by removing the provider
from associated access zones.
NOTE: Do not use the NULL account with Kerberos authentication. Using the NULL account for Kerberos authentication
can cause issues.

Session ticket lifetimes

The duration of connections that are authenticated using Kerberos is based on the Kerberos ticket lifetime settings. These
settings are controlled on the Kerberos Distribution Center (KDC). For information about configuring maximum lifetimes, see the
appropriate provider documentation as shown in the following table.
SMB only checks ticket validity during initial authentication. As a result, SMB connections may remain valid and in use after
Kerberos tickets expire. For information about immediately closing active SMB sessions, contact Dell Technologies Support.

Authentication 85
Provider type Documentation for configuring maximum lifetimes
Microsoft Kerberos with Active See the following Microsoft documentation:
Directory Domain Services ● Maximum lifetime for service ticket
● Maximum lifetime for user ticket
MIT Kerberos See the MIT Kerberos documentation for configuring the kdc.conf file. The
max_life setting in kdc.conf controls the lifetime duration.

Related concepts
Authentication overview

Keytabs and SPNs overview

A Key Distribution Center (KDC) is an authentication server that stores accounts and keytabs for users connecting to a network
service within a cluster. A keytab is a key table that stores keys to validate and encrypt Kerberos tickets.
One of the fields in a keytab entry is a service principal name (SPN). An SPN identifies a unique service instance within a
cluster. Each SPN is associated with a specific key in the KDC. Users can use the SPN and its associated keys to obtain
Kerberos tickets that enable access to various services on the cluster. A member of the SecurityAdmin role can create new keys
for the SPNs and modify them later as necessary. An SPN for a service typically appears as <service>/<fqdn>@<realm>.
NOTE: SPNs must match the SmartConnect zone name and the FQDN hostname of the cluster. If the SmartConnect zone
settings are changed, you must update the SPNs on the cluster to match the changes.

MIT Kerberos protocol support

MIT Kerberos supports certain standard network communication protocols such as HTTP, HDFS, and NFS. MIT Kerberos does
not support SMB, SSH, and FTP protocols.
For the NFS protocol support, MIT Kerberos must be enabled for an export and also a Kerberos provider must be included within
the access zone.

File provider
A file provider enables you to supply an authoritative third-party source of user and group information to a PowerScale
cluster. A third-party source is useful in UNIX and Linux environments that synchronize /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and
etc/netgroup files across multiple servers.
Standard BSD /etc/spwd.db and /etc/group database files serve as the file provider backing store on a cluster. You
generate the spwd.db file by running the pwd_mkdb command in the OneFS command-line interface (CLI). You can script
updates to the database files.
On a PowerScale cluster, a file provider hashes passwords with libcrypt. For the best security, it is recommended that
you use the Modular Crypt Format in the source /etc/passwd file to determine the hashing algorithm. OneFS supports the
following algorithms for the Modular Crypt Format:
● MD5
● NT-Hash
● SHA-256
● SHA-512
For information about other available password formats, run the man 3 crypt command in the CLI to view the crypt man
pages.
NOTE: The built-in System file provider includes services to list, manage, and authenticate against system accounts such as
root, admin, and nobody. It is recommended that you do not modify the System file provider.

Related concepts
Authentication overview

86 Authentication
Local provider
The local provider provides authentication and lookup facilities for user accounts added by an administrator.
Local authentication is useful when Active Directory, LDAP, or NIS directory services are not configured or when a specific user
or application needs access to the cluster. Local groups can include built-in groups and Active Directory groups as members.
In addition to configuring network-based authentication sources, you can manage local users and groups by configuring a local
password policy for each node in the cluster. OneFS settings specify password complexity, password age and re-use, and
password-attempt lockout policies.

Related concepts
Authentication overview

Multifactor authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a method of computer access control in which you are only granted access after
successfully presenting several separate pieces of evidence to an authentication mechanism. Typically, authentication uses
at least two of the following categories: Knowledge (something you know); possession (something you have), and inherence
(something you are).
MFA is a great way to increase the security of a cluster. Increasing the security of privileged account access (For example,
administrators) to a cluster is the best way to prevent unauthorized access.
MFA enables the LSASS daemon to require and accept multiple forms of credentials other than a username or password
combination for some forms of authentication. There exist many ways to implement MFA with the most common being public or
private key authentication.
The MFA feature adds PAPI support for SSH configuration using public keys that are stored in LDAP and Multi-Factor
Authentication support for SSH through the Duo security platform. Duo MFA supports the Duo App, SMS, and Voice.
The use of Duo requires an account with the Duo service. Duo provides a host, ikey, and skey to use for configuration (skey
should be treated as a secure credential).
Duo MFA is on top of existing password and/or public key requirements. If the SSH configuration type is set to any or custom,
Duo cannot be configured. Only specific users or groups may be enabled to bypass MFA if specified on the Duo server. Duo
enables the creation of one time or date/time limited bypass keys for a specific user. Also, the bypass keys can be permanent.

Single sign-on overview

OneFS supports single sign-on (SSO) authentication to the WebUi using a third-party system as the SSO Identity Provider.
SSO enables a user to access multiple independent systems after authenticating to an Identity Provider.
NOTE: Configuring OneFS to participate in SSO is not the same as configuring OneFS to use an external authentication
provider domain to authenticate users. For that solution, see the section "Supported authentication providers".
Two components are involved in the SSO solution.
● The Service Provider (SP) provides services to users. Users must authenticate to gain access. If SSO is configured, the
Service Provider sends requests for authentication to an external system rather than prompting the user for credentials.
● The Identity Provider (IdP) is the external system that performs authentication on behalf of other systems.
NOTE: The IdP is external to OneFS and is not provided by Dell.

In the OneFS SSO solution:

● OneFS is the SP that forwards authentication requests to a third-party IdP.
● In OneFS, the verified IdP is Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). Other IdPs may work.
The SSO configuration procedures describe how to configure OneFS and ADFS to work together to provide SSO authentication.
Each system needs information about the other one. The procedures assume that you are using ADFS as the IdP and that you
already have it configured and running.

Authentication 87
SSO user experience by access zone
OneFS SSO is configured and enabled separately for each access zone.
SSO is configured separately for each access zone. Each access zone can have SSO enabled or disabled separately. For each
access zone that has SSO enabled, you must configure an IdP You can use the same or different IdP for each zone. Each zone
can have only one IdP.
When SSO is enabled on a zone, the Log in with SSO link appears on the OneFS WebUI login screen. When a user clicks that
link, OneFS sends a SAML request to the SSO IdP. One of the following occurs:
● If the user has already logged into the SSO IdP, the IdP returns an authentication token to OneFS. The user gains access to
the OneFS home screen.
● If the user has not logged into the SSO IdP, the user is redirected to the IdP login screen and logs in. If the login is
successful, the IdP returns an authentication token to OneFS. The user gains access to the OneFS home screen.
If the signing certificate required for communicating with the IdP expires, OneFS disables SSO. An authorized administrator can
regenerate an expired certificate on the WebUI, using Access > Authentication providers > SSO > <access-zone> .

SSO with MFA

To combine single sign-on with multifactor authentication (MFA), you must configure the MFA feature in the IdP, rather than in
OneFS.

Multi-instance active directory

If you are a zone-local administrator, you can create your own AD instance, even if the AD instance for the same domain is
already created globally or in another access zone.
Previously, only one connection to Active Directory was enabled, and the name of the Active Directory provider had to be the
same as the name of the domain to which it was connecting. With the introduction of zone-local authentication providers,
zone-local administrators can create their own Active Directory provider, and be able to modify its parameters. To perform this
action, you must do two things:
● Create a new provider instance name for this provider
● Create a new machine account for this provider connection
An AD provider may have a name different than its domain name, using -instance. Then commands can use the instance name to
find the particular AD provider. Each access zone can have only one AD provider.

LDAP public keys

You can now use public SSH keys from LDAP rather than that of user's home directory on the OneFS cluster.
The LDAP create and modify commands support the --ssh-public-key-attribute option.
You can view your public key by adding --show-ssh-key.
Multiple keys may be specified in the LDAP configuration. The key that corresponds to the private key that is presented in the
ssh session is used.
Nonetheless, you need a home directory on the cluster or you could get an error when you log in.

Managing Active Directory providers

You can view, configure, modify, and delete Active Directory providers. OneFS includes a Kerberos configuration file for Active
Directory in addition to the global Kerberos configuration file, both of which you can configure through the command-line
interface. You can discontinue authentication through an Active Directory provider by removing it from all access zones that are
using it.

88 Authentication
Configure an Active Directory provider
You can configure one or more Active Directory providers, each of which must be joined to a separate Active Directory domain.
By default, when you configure an Active Directory provider, it is automatically added to the System access zone.
NOTE: Consider the following information when you configure an Active Directory provider:
● When you join Active Directory from OneFS, cluster time is updated from the Active Directory server, as long as an NTP
server has not been configured for the cluster.
● If you migrate users to a new or different Active Directory domain, you must re-set the ACL domain information after
you configure the new provider. You can use third-party tools such as Microsoft SubInACL.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Active Directory.
2. Click Join a domain.
3. In the Domain Name field, specify the fully qualified Active Directory domain name, which can be resolved to an IPv4 or an
IPv6 address.
The domain name will also be used as the provider name.
4. In the User field, type the username of an account that is authorized to join the Active Directory domain.
5. In the Password field, type the password of the user account.
6. Optional: In the Organizational Unit field, type the name of the organizational unit (OU) to connect to on the Active
Directory server. Specify the OU in the format OuName or OuName1/SubName2.
7. Optional: In the Machine Account field, type the name of the machine account.
NOTE: If you specified an OU to connect to, the domain join will fail if the machine account does not reside in the OU.

8. From the Groupnet list, select the groupnet the authentication provider will reference.
9. Optional: To enable Active Directory authentication for NFS, select Enable Secure NFS.
NOTE: If you specified an OU to connect to, the domain join will fail if the machine account does not reside in the OU.

If you enable this setting, OneFS registers NFS service principal names (SPNs) during the domain join.

10. Optional: In the Advanced Active Directory Settings area, configure the advanced settings that you want to use. It is
recommended that you not change any advanced settings without understanding their consequences.
11. Click Join.

Related concepts
Managing Active Directory providers

Related references
Active Directory provider settings

Modify an Active Directory provider

You can modify the advanced settings for an Active Directory provider.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Active Directory.
2. In the Active Directory Providers table, click View details for the provider whose settings you want to modify.
3. Click Advanced Active Directory Settings.
4. For each setting that you want to modify, click Edit, make the change, and then click Save.
5. Optional: Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing Active Directory providers

Authentication 89
Delete an Active Directory provider
When you delete an Active Directory provider, you disconnect the cluster from the Active Directory domain that is associated
with the provider, disrupting service for users who are accessing it. After you leave an Active Directory domain, users can no
longer access the domain from the cluster.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Active Directory.
2. In the Active Directory Providers table, click Leave for the domain you want to leave.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Leave.

Related concepts
Managing Active Directory providers

Active Directory provider settings

You can view or modify the advanced settings for an Active Directory provider.

Setting Description
Services For UNIX Specifies whether to support RFC 2307 attributes for
domain controllers. RFC 2307 is required for Windows UNIX
Integration and Services For UNIX technologies.
Map to primary domain Enables the lookup of unqualified user names in the primary
domain. If this setting is not enabled, the primary domain must
be specified for each authentication operation.
Ignore trusted domains Ignores all trusted domains.
Trusted Domains Specifies trusted domains to include if the Ignore Trusted
Domains setting is enabled.
Domains to Ignore Specifies trusted domains to ignore even if the Ignore
Trusted Domains setting is disabled.
Send notification when domain is unreachable Sends an alert as specified in the global notification rules.
Use enhanced privacy and encryption Encrypts communication to and from the domain controller.
Home Directory Naming Specifies the path to use as a template for naming home
directories. The path must begin with /ifs and can contain
variables, such as %U, that are expanded to generate the
home directory path for the user.
Create home directories on first login Creates a home directory the first time that a user logs in if a
home directory does not already exist for the user.
UNIX Shell Specifies the path to the login shell to use if the Active
Directory server does not provide login-shell information. This
setting applies only to users who access the file system
through SSH.
Query all other providers for UID If no UID is available in the Active Directory, looks up Active
Directory users in all other providers for allocating a UID.
Match users with lowercase If no UID is available in the Active Directory, normalizes Active
Directory user names to lowercase before lookup.
Auto-assign UIDs If no UID is available in the Active Directory, enables UID
allocation for unmapped Active Directory users.
Query all other providers for GID If no GID is available in the Active Directory, looks up Active
Directory groups in all other providers before allocating a GID.
Match groups with lowercase If no GID is available in the Active Directory, normalizes Active
Directory group names to lowercase before lookup.

90 Authentication
Setting Description
Auto-assign GIDs If no GID is available in the Active Directory, enables GID
allocation for unmapped Active Directory groups.
Make UID/GID assignments for users and groups in these Restricts user and group lookups to the specified domains.
specific domains

Managing LDAP providers

You can view, configure, modify, and delete LDAP providers. You can discontinue authentication through an LDAP provider by
removing it from all access zones that are using it.

Configure an LDAP provider

By default, when you configure an LDAP provider, it is automatically added to the System access zone.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > LDAP.
2. Click Add an LDAP Provider.
3. In the LDAP provider name field, type a name for the provider.
4. In the Server URIs field, type one or more valid LDAP server URIs, one per line, in the format ldaps://<server>:<port>
(secure LDAP) or ldap://<server>:<port> (non-secure LDAP). An LDAP server URI can be specified as an IPv4 address, IPv6
address, or hostname.
NOTE:
● If you do not specify a port, the default port is used. The default port for non-secure LDAP (ldap://) is 389; for
secure LDAP (ldaps://), it is 636. If you specify non-secure LDAP, the bind password is transmitted to the server in
cleartext.
● If you specify an IPv6 address, the address must be enclosed in square brackets. For example, ldap://
[2001:DB8:170:7cff::c001] is the correct IPv6 format for this field.

5. Select the Connect to a random server on each request checkbox to connect to an LDAP server at random. If
unselected, OneFS connects to an LDAP server in the order listed in the Server URIs field.
6. In the Base distinguished name (DN) field, type the distinguished name (DN) of the entry at which to start LDAP
searches.
Base DNs can include cn (Common Name), l (Locality), dc (Domain Component), ou (Organizational Unit), or other
components. For example, dc=emc,dc=com is a base DN for emc.com.
7. From the Groupnet list, select the groupnet that the authentication provider will reference.
8. In the Bind DN field, type the distinguished name of the entry at which to bind to the LDAP server.
9. In the Bind DN password field, specify the password to use when binding to the LDAP server.
Use of this password does not require a secure connection; if the connection is not using Transport Layer Security (TLS),
the password is sent in cleartext.
10. Optional: Update the settings in the following sections of the Add an LDAP provider form to meet the needs of your
environment:

Option Description
Default Query Settings Modify the default settings for user, group, and netgroup queries.
User Query Settings Modify the settings for user queries and home directory provisioning.
Group Query Settings Modify the settings for group queries.
Netgroup Query Settings Modify the settings for netgroup queries.
Advanced LDAP Settings Modify the default LDAP attributes that contain user information or to modify LDAP security
settings.
11. Click Add LDAP Provider.

Authentication 91
Related concepts
Managing LDAP providers

Related references
LDAP query settings
LDAP advanced settings

Modify an LDAP provider

You can modify any setting for an LDAP provider except its name. You must specify at least one server for the provider to be
enabled.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > LDAP.
2. In the LDAP Providers table, click View details for the provider whose settings you want to modify.
3. For each setting that you want to modify, click Edit, make the change, and then click Save.
4. Optional: Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing LDAP providers

Delete an LDAP provider

When you delete an LDAP provider, it is removed from all the access zones. As an alternative, you can stop using an LDAP
provider by removing it from each access zone that contains it so that the provider remains available for future use.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > LDAP.
2. In the LDAP Providers table, click Delete for the provider you want to delete.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing LDAP providers

LDAP query settings

You can configure the entry point and depth at which to search for LDAP users, groups, and netgroups. You also can configure
the settings for user home directory provisioning.

NOTE: OneFS is RFC 2307-compliant.

Base Specifies the base distinguished name (base DN) of the entry at which to start LDAP searches for
distinguished user, group, or netgroup objects. Base DNs can include cn (Common Name), l (Locality), dc (Domain
name Component), ou (Organizational Unit), or other components. For example, dc=emc,dc=com is a base DN
for emc.com.
Search scope Specifies the depth from the base DN at which to perform LDAP searches. The following values are valid:

Default Applies the search scope that is defined in the default query settings. This option is
not available for the default query search scope.
Base Searches only the entry at the base DN.
One-level Searches all entries exactly one level below the base DN.
Subtree Searches the base DN and all entries below it.
Children Searches all entries below the base DN, excluding the base DN itself.

Search timeout Specifies the number of seconds after which to stop retrying and fail a search. The default value is 100.
This setting is available only in the default query settings.

92 Authentication
Query filter Specifies the LDAP filter for user, group, or netgroup objects. This setting is not available in the default
query settings.
Authenticate Specifies whether to allow the provider to respond to authentication requests. This setting is available
users from this only in the user query settings.
LDAP provider
Home directory Specifies the path to use as a template for naming home directories. The path must begin with /ifs and
naming template can contain variables, such as %U, that are expanded to generate the home directory path for the user.
This setting is available only in the user query settings.
Automatically Specifies whether to create a home directory the first time a user logs in, if a home directory does not
create user home exist for the user. This setting is available only in the user query settings.
directories on
first login
UNIX shell Specifies the path to the user's login shell, for users who access the file system through SSH. This setting
is available only in the user query settings.

LDAP advanced settings

You can configure LDAP security settings and specify the LDAP attributes that contain user information.

NOTE: OneFS is RFC 2307-compliant.

Name attribute Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains UIDs, which are used as login names. The default value is uid.
Common name Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains common names (CNs). The default value is cn.
attribute
Email attribute Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains email addresses. The default value is mail.
GECOS field Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains GECOS fields. The default value is gecos.
attribute
UID attribute Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains UID numbers. The default value is uidNumber.
GID attribute Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains GIDs. The default value is gidNumber.
Home directory Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains home directories. The default value is homeDirectory.
attribute
UNIX shell Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains UNIX login shells. The default value is loginShell.
attribute
Member of Sets the attribute to be used when searching LDAP for reverse memberships. This LDAP value should
attribute be an attribute of the user type posixAccount that describes the groups in which the POSIX user is a
member. This setting has no default value.
Netgroup Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains netgroup members. The default value is
members memberNisNetgroup.
attribute
Netgroup triple Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains netgroup triples. The default value is nisNetgroupTriple.
attribute
Group members Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains group members. The default value is memberUid.
attribute
Unique group Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains unique group members. This attribute is used to determine
members which groups a user belongs to if the LDAP server is queried by the user’s DN instead of the user’s name.
attribute This setting has no default value.
Alternate Specifies the name to be used when searching for alternate security identities. This name is used when
security OneFS tries to resolve a Kerberos principal to a user. This setting has no default value.
identities
attribute
UNIX password Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains UNIX passwords. This setting has no default value.
attribute

Authentication 93
Windows Specifies the LDAP attribute that contains Windows passwords. A commonly used value is
password ntpasswdhash.
attribute
Certificate Specifies the full path to the root certificates file.
authority file
Require secure Specifies whether to require a Transport Layer Security (TLS) connection.
connection for
passwords
Ignore TLS errors Continues over a secure connection even if identity checks fail.

Managing NIS providers

You can view, configure, and modify NIS providers or delete providers that are no longer needed. You can discontinue
authentication through an NIS provider by removing it from all access zones that are using it.

Configure an NIS provider

By default, when you configure an NIS provider it is automatically added to the System access zone.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > NIS.
2. Click Add a NIS provider.
3. In the NIS Provider Name field, type a name for the provider.
4. In the Servers field, type one or more valid IPv4 addresses, host names, or fully qualified domain names (FQDNs), separated
by commas.
NOTE: If the Load balance servers option is not selected, servers are accessed in the order in which they are listed.

5. In the NIS Domain field, type the domain name.

6. Optional: Configure the Load balance servers setting:
● To connect to an NIS server at random, select the check box.
● To connect according to the order in which the NIS servers are listed in the Servers field, clear the check box.
7. From the Groupnet list, select the groupnet the authentication provider will reference.
8. Optional: Specify the Default Query Settings.
a. In the Search Timeout field, specifies the number of seconds after which to stop retrying and fail a search. The default
value is 20.
b. In the Retry Frequency field, specify the timeout period in seconds after which a request will be retried. The default
value is 5.
9. Optional: Specify the User Query Settings.
a. Select the Authenticate users from this provider check box to allow the provider to respond to authentication
requests.
b. Type a path in the Home Directory Naming field to use as a template for naming home directories. The path must begin
with /ifs and can contain expansion variables, such as %U, which expand to generate the home directory path for the
user. For more information, see the Home directories section.
c. Select the Create home directories on first login check box to specify whether to create a home directory the first
time a user logs in, if a home directory does not already exist for the user.
d. Select a path from the UNIX Shell list to specify the path to the user's login shell for users who access the file system
through SSH.
10. Optional: Click Host Name Query Settings and then configure the Resolve hosts from this provider setting:
● To enable host resolution, select the check box.
● To disable host resolution, clear the check box.
11. Click Add NIS provider.

Related concepts
Managing NIS providers

94 Authentication
Modify an NIS provider
You can modify any setting for an NIS provider except its name. You must specify at least one server for the provider to be
enabled.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > NIS.
2. In the NIS Providers table, click View details for the provider whose settings you want to modify.
3. For each setting that you want to modify, click Edit, make the change, and then click Save.
4. Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing NIS providers

Delete an NIS provider

When you delete an NIS provider, it is removed from all access zones. As an alternative, you can stop using an NIS provider by
removing it from each access zone that contains it so that the provider remains available for future use.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > NIS.
2. In the NIS Providers table, click Delete for the provider that you want to delete.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing NIS providers

Managing MIT Kerberos authentication

You can configure an MIT Kerberos provider for authentication without Active Directory. Configuring an MIT Kerberos provider
involves creating an MIT Kerberos realm, creating a provider, and joining a predefined realm. Optionally, you can configure an
MIT Kerberos domain for the provider. You can also update the encryption keys if there are any configuration changes to the
Kerberos provider. You can include the provider in one or more access zones.

Managing MIT Kerberos realms

An MIT Kerberos realm is an administrative domain that defines the boundaries within which an authentication server has the
authority to authenticate a user or service. You can create, view, edit, or delete a realm. As a best practice, specify a realm
name using uppercase characters.

Create an MIT Kerberos realm

An MIT Kerberos realm is an administrative domain that defines the boundaries within which an authentication server has
the authority to authenticate a user or service. You can create a realm by defining a Key Distribution Center (KDC) and an
administrative server.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. Click Create a Kerberos Realm.
3. In the Realm Name field, type a domain name in uppercase characters. For example, CLUSTER-NAME.COMPANY.COM.
4. Select the Set as the default realm check box to set the realm as the default.
5. In the Key Distribution Centers (KDCs) field add one or more KDCs by specifying the IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or the
hostname of each server.
6. Optional: In the Admin Server field, specify the IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or hostname of the administration server to
fulfill the role of primary KDC. If you omit this step, the first KDC that you added is used as the default administrative server.
7. Optional: In the Default Domain field, specify the domain name to use for translating the service principal names.
8. Click Create Realm.

Authentication 95
Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos realms

Modify an MIT Kerberos realm

You can modify an MIT Kerberos realm by modifying the Key Distribution Center (KDC) and the administrative server settings
for that realm.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Realms table, select a realm and click View / Edit.
3. In the View a Kerberos Realm page, click Edit Realm.
4. Select or clear the Set as the default realm check box to modify the default realm setting.
5. In the Key Distribution Centers (KDCs) field, specify the IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or the hostname of each additional
KDC server.
6. In the Admin Server field, specify the IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or hostname of the administration server to fulfill the role
of primary KDC.
7. In the Default Domain field, specify an alternate domain name for translating the service principal names (SPNs).
8. Click Save Changes to return to the View a Kerberos Realm page.
9. Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos realms

View an MIT Kerberos realm

You can view details related to the name, Key Distribution Centers (KDCs), and administrative server associated with an MIT
Kerberos realm.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Realms table, select a realm and click View / Edit to view the information associated with the realm.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos realms

Delete an MIT Kerberos realm

You can delete one or more MIT Kerberos realms and all the associated MIT Kerberos domains. Kerberos realms are referenced
by Kerberos providers. Hence before you delete a realm for which you have created a provider, you must first delete that
provider.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Realms table, select one or more realms and then perform one of the following actions:
● To delete a single realm, select the realm and click More > Delete from the Actions column.
● To delete multiple realms, select the realms and then select Delete Selection from the Select a bulk action list.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos realms

96 Authentication
Managing MIT Kerberos providers
You can create view, delete, or modify an MIT Kerberos provider. You can also configure the Kerberos provider settings.

Creating an MIT Kerberos provider

You can create an MIT Kerberos provider by obtaining the credentials for accessing a cluster through the Key Distribution
Center (KDC) of the Kerberos realm. This process is also known as joining a realm. Thus when you create a Kerberos provider
you also join a realm that you have previously created. You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to create an MIT
Kerberos provider.
Using the web interface, you can perform the following tasks through a single workflow or perform each task individually before
creating the provider.
● Defining a realm
● Defining a domain
● Managing a service principal name (SPN)

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos providers

Create an MIT Kerberos realm, domain, and a provider

You can create an MIT Kerberos realm, domain, and a provider through a single workflow instead of configuring each of these
objects individually.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. Click Get Started.
The system displays the Create a Kerberos Realm and Provider window.
3. From the Create Realm section, type a domain name in the Realm Name field.
It is recommended that the domain name is formatted in uppercase characters, such as CLUSTER-NAME.COMPANY.COM.
4. Check the Set as the default realm box to set the realm as the default.
5. In the Key Distribution Centers (KDCs) field, add one or more KDCs by specifying the IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or the
hostname of each server.
6. In the Admin Server field, specify the IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or hostname of the administration server, which will be
fulfill the role of master KDC. If you omit this step, the first KDC that you added previously is used as the default admin
server.
7. In the Default Domain field, specify the domain name to use for translating the service principal names (SPNs).
8. Optional: From the Create Domain(s) section, specify one or more domain names to associate with the realm in the
Domain(s) field.
9. From the Authenticate to Realm section, type the name and password of a user that has permission to create SPNs in the
Kerberos realm in the User and Password fields.
10. From the Create Provider section, select the groupnet the authentication provider will reference from the Groupnet list.
11. From the Service Principal Name (SPN) Management area, select one of the following options to be used for managing
SPNs:
● Use recommended SPNs
● Manually associate SPNs
If you select this option, type at least one SPN in the format service/principal@realm to manually associate it
with the realm.

12. Click Create Provider and Join Realm.

Related concepts
Creating an MIT Kerberos provider

Authentication 97
Create an MIT Kerberos provider and join a realm
You join a realm automatically as you create an MIT Kerberos provider. A realm defines a domain within which the authentication
for a specific user or service takes place.
You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to view and access the Create a Kerberos Provider button and perform the
tasks described in this procedure.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. Click Create a Kerberos Provider.
3. In the User field, type a user name who has the permission to create service principal names (SPNs) in the Kerberos realm.
4. In the Password field, type the password for the user.
5. From the Realm list, select the realm that you want to join. The realm must already be configured on the system.
6. From the Groupnet list, select the groupnet the authentication provider will reference.
7. From the Service Principal Name (SPN) Management area, select one of the following options to be used for managing
SPNs:
● Use recommended SPNs
● Manually associate SPNs
If you select this option, type at least one SPN in the format service/principal@realm to manually associate it
with the realm.

8. Click Create Provider and Join Realm.

Related concepts
Creating an MIT Kerberos provider

Modify an MIT Kerberos provider

You can modify the realm authentication information and the service principal name (SPN) information for an MIT Kerberos
provider.
You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to view and access the View / Edit button to modify an MIT Kerberos
provider.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Provider table, select a domain and click View / Edit.
3. In the View a Kerberos Provider page, click Edit Provider.
4. In the Realm Authentication Information section, specify the credentials for a user with permissions to create SPNs in
the given Kerberos realm.
5. In the Provider Information section, select one of the following options for managing the SPNs:
● Use the recommended SPNs.
● Type an SPN in the format service/principal@realm to manually associate the SPN with the selected realm. You
can add more than one SPN for association, if necessary.
6. Click Save Changes to return to the View a Kerberos Provider page.
7. Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos providers

View an MIT Kerberos provider

You can view information related to MIT Kerberos realms and service principal names (SPNs) associated with an MIT Kerberos
provider.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Providers table, select a provider and click View / Edit to view the provider information including the
realm, recommended SPNs, and any other SPNs that are discovered.

98 Authentication
Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos providers

Delete an MIT Kerberos provider

You can delete an MIT Kerberos provider and remove it from all the referenced access zones. When you delete a provider, you
also leave an MIT Kerberos realm.
You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to perform the tasks described in this procedure.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Providers table, select one or more providers and then perform one of the following actions:
● To delete a single provider, select the provider and click More > Delete from the Actions column.
● To delete multiple providers, select the providers and then select Delete Selection from the Select a bulk action list.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos providers

Configure Kerberos provider settings

You can configure the settings of a Kerberos provider to allow the DNS records to locate the Key Distribution Center (KDC),
Kerberos realms, and the authentication servers associated with a Kerberos realm. These settings are global to all the users of
Kerberos across all the nodes, services, and access zones. Some settings are applicable only to the client-side Kerberos that is
relevant when joining a realm or when communicating with an Active Directory KDC. Typically, you do not need to change the
settings after the initial configuration.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Settings.
2. In the Default Realm field, specify the realm to use for the service principal name (SPN). The default realm is the first realm
that you create.
3. Select a check box to always send pre-authentication. This is a client-side Kerberos configuration setting.
Selecting this check box enables the Kerberos ticket requests to include ENC_TIMESTAMP as the pre-authentication data
even if the authentication server did not request it. This is useful when working with Active Directory servers.
4. Select a check box to specify whether to use the DNS server records to locate the KDCs and other servers for a realm, if
that information is not listed for the realm.
5. Select a check box to specify whether to use the DNS text records to determine the Kerberos realm of a host.
6. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos providers

Managing MIT Kerberos domains

You can optionally define MIT Kerberos domains to allow additional domain extensions to be associated with an MIT Kerberos
realm. You can always specify a default domain for a realm.
You can create, modify, delete, and view an MIT Kerberos domain. A Kerberos domain name is a DNS suffix that you specify
typically using lowercase characters.

Create an MIT Kerberos domain

You optionally create an MIT Kerberos domain to allow additional domain extensions to be associated with an MIT Kerberos
realm apart from the default domains.
You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to perform the tasks described in this procedure.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. Click Create a Kerberos Domain.

Authentication 99
3. In the Domain field, specify a domain name which is typically a DNS suffix in lowercase characters.
4. From the Realm list, select a realm that you have configured previously.
5. Click Create Domain.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos domains

Modify an MIT Kerberos domain

You can modify an MIT Kerberos domain by modifying the realm settings.
You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to perform the tasks described in this procedure.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Domains table, select a domain and click View / Edit.
3. In the View a Kerberos Domain page, click Edit Domain.
4. From the Realm list, select an alternate realm.
5. Click Save Changes to return to the View a Kerberos Domain page.
6. Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos domains

View an MIT Kerberos domain

You can view the properties of an MIT Kerberos domain mapping.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Domains table, select a domain and click View / Edit to view the properties of the domain mapping.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos domains

Delete an MIT Kerberos domain

You can delete one or more MIT Kerberos domain mappings.
You must be a member of the SecurityAdmin role to perform the tasks described in this procedure.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > Kerberos Provider.
2. In the Kerberos Domains table, select one or more domain mappings and then perform one of the following actions:
● To delete a single domain mapping, select the mapping and click More > Delete from the Actions column.
● To delete multiple domain mappings, select the mappings and then select Delete Selection from the Select a bulk
action list.

Related concepts
Managing MIT Kerberos domains

Managing file providers

You can configure one or more file providers, each with its own combination of replacement files, for each access zone.
Password database files, which are also called user database files, must be in binary format.
Each file provider pulls directly from up to three replacement database files: a group file that has the same format as /etc/
group; a netgroups file; and a binary password file, spwd.db, which provides fast access to the data in a file that has

100 Authentication
the /etc/master.passwd format. You must copy the replacement files to the cluster and reference them by their directory
path.
NOTE: If the replacement files are located outside the /ifs directory tree, you must distribute them manually to every
node in the cluster. Changes that are made to the system provider's files are automatically distributed across the cluster.

Configure a file provider

You can configure one or more file providers, each with its own combination of replacement files, for each access zone. You can
specify replacement files for any combination of users, groups, and netgroups.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > File Provider.
2. Click Add a file provider.
3. In the File provider name field, type a name for the file provider.
4. To specify a user replacement file, in the Path to users file field, type or browse to the location of the spwd.db file.
5. To specify a netgroup replacement file, in the Path to netgroups file field, type or browse to the location of the
netgroup file.
6. To specify a group replacement file, in the Path to groups file field, type or browse to the location of the group file.
7. Optional: Configure the following settings:

Option Description
Authenticate users from Specifies whether to allow the provider to respond to authentication requests.
this provider
Create home directories Specifies whether to create a home directory the first time a user logs in, if a home directory
on first login does not exist for the user.
Path to home directory Specifies the path to use as a template for naming home directories. The path must begin
with /ifs and can contain expansion variables such as %U, which expand to generate the
home directory path for the user. For more information, see the Home directories section of the
OneFS Web Administration Guide or the OneFS CLI Administration Guide.
UNIX Shell Specifies the path to the user's login shell, for users who access the file system through SSH.
8. Click Add File Provider.

Related concepts
Managing file providers

Related references
Password file format
Group file format
Netgroup file format

Generate a password file

Password database files, which are also called user database files, must be in binary format.
This procedure must be performed through the command-line interface (CLI). For command-usage guidelines, run the man
pwd_mkdb command.
1. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
2. Run the pwd_mkdb <file> command, where <file> is the location of the source password file.
NOTE: By default, the binary password file, spwd.db, is created in the /etc directory. You can override the location to
store the spwd.db file by specifying the -d option with a different target directory.

Authentication 101
 The following command generates an spwd.db file in the /etc directory from a password file that is located at /ifs/
test.passwd:

pwd_mkdb /ifs/test.passwd

The following command generates an spwd.db file in the /ifs directory from a password file that is located at /ifs/
test.passwd:

pwd_mkdb -d /ifs /ifs/test.passwd

Related concepts
Managing file providers

Related references
Password file format

Password file format

The file provider uses a binary password database file, spwd.db. You can generate a binary password file from a
master.passwd-formatted file by running the pwd_mkdb command.
The master.passwd file contains ten colon-separated fields, as shown in the following example:

admin:*:10:10::0:0:Web UI Administrator:/ifs/home/admin:/bin/zsh

The fields are defined below in the order in which they appear in the file.
NOTE: UNIX systems often define the passwd format as a subset of these fields, omitting the Class, Change, and Expiry
fields. To convert a file from passwd to master.passwd format, add :0:0: between the GID field and the Gecos field.

Username The user name. This field is case-sensitive. OneFS does not limit the length; many applications truncate
the name to 16 characters, however.
Password The user’s encrypted password. If authentication is not required for the user, you can substitute an
asterisk (*) for a password. The asterisk character is guaranteed to not match any password.
UID The UNIX user identifier. This value must be a number in the range 0-4294967294 that is not reserved
or already assigned to a user. Compatibility issues occur if this value conflicts with an existing account's
UID.
GID The group identifier of the user’s primary group. All users are a member of at least one group, which is
used for access checks and can also be used when creating files.
Class This field is not supported by OneFS and should be left empty.
Change OneFS does not support changing the passwords of users in the file provider. This field is ignored.
Expiry OneFS does not support the expiration of user accounts in the file provider. This field is ignored.
Gecos This field can store a variety of information but is usually used to store the user’s full name.
Home The absolute path to the user’s home directory.
Shell The absolute path to the user’s shell. If this field is set to /sbin/nologin, the user is denied command-
line access.

Related concepts
Managing file providers

102 Authentication
Group file format
The file provider uses a group file in the format of the /etc/group file that exists on most UNIX systems.
The group file consists of one or more lines containing four colon-separated fields, as shown in the following example:

admin:*:10:root,admin

The fields are defined below in the order in which they appear in the file.

Group name The name of the group. This field is case-sensitive. Although OneFS does not limit the length of the group
name, many applications truncate the name to 16 characters.
Password This field is not supported by OneFS and should contain an asterisk (*).
GID The UNIX group identifier. Valid values are any number in the range 0-4294967294 that is not reserved
or already assigned to a group. Compatibility issues occur if this value conflicts with an existing group's
GID.
Group members A comma-delimited list of user names.

Related concepts
Managing file providers

Netgroup file format

A netgroup file consists of one or more netgroups, each of which can contain members. Hosts, users, or domains, which are
members of a netgroup, are specified in a member triple. A netgroup can also contain another netgroup.
Each entry in a netgroup file consists of the netgroup name, followed by a space-delimited set of member triples and nested
netgroup names. If you specify a nested netgroup, it must be defined on a separate line in the file.
A member triple takes the following form:

(<host>, <user>, <domain>)

Where <host> is a placeholder for a machine name, <user> is a placeholder for a user name, and <domain> is a placeholder for a
domain name. Any combination is valid except an empty triple: (,,).
The following sample file contains two netgroups. The rootgrp netgroup contains four hosts: two hosts are defined in member
triples and two hosts are contained in the nested othergrp netgroup, which is defined on the second line.

rootgrp (myserver, root, somedomain.com) (otherserver, root, somedomain.com) othergrp

othergrp (other-win,, somedomain.com) (other-linux,, somedomain.com)

NOTE: A new line signifies a new netgroup. You can continue a long netgroup entry to the next line by typing a backslash
character (\) in the right-most position of the first line.

Related concepts
Managing file providers

Modify a file provider

You can modify any setting for a file provider, with the exception that you cannot rename the System file provider.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > File Provider.
2. In the File Providers table, click View details for the provider whose settings you want to modify.
3. For each setting that you want to modify, click Edit, make the change, and then click Save.
4. Click Close.

Authentication 103
Related concepts
Managing file providers

Delete a file provider

To stop using a file provider, you can clear all of its replacement file settings or you can permanently delete the provider.
1. Click Access > Authentication Providers > File Provider.
2. In the File Providers table, select the provider name.
3. Select Delete from the Select an action list.
4. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing file providers

Managing local users and groups

When you create an access zone, each zone includes a local provider that allows you to create and manage local users and
groups. Although you can view the users and groups of any authentication provider, you can create, modify, and delete users
and groups in the local provider only.

View a list of users or groups by provider

You can view the users and groups of any authentication provider.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles.
2. Click one of the following tabs, depending on what you want to view:

Option Description
Users Select this tab to view all users by provider.
Groups Select this tab to view all groups by provider.
3. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
4. Select the local provider in the Providers list.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Create a local user

Each access zone includes a local provider that allows you to create and manage local users and groups. When creating a local
user account, you can configure its name, password, home directory, UNIX user identifier (UID), UNIX login shell, and group
memberships.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Users.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
3. From the Providers list, select the local provider for the zone.
4. Click Create User.
5. In the User Name field, type a username for the account.
6. In the Password field, type a password for the account.
7. Optional: Configure the following additional settings as needed.

104 Authentication
 Option Description
UID If this setting is left blank, the system automatically allocates a UID for the account. This is the
recommended setting. You cannot assign a UID that is in use by another local user account.
Full Name Type a full name for the user.
Email Address Type an email address for the account.
Primary Group To specify the owner group using the Select a Primary Group dialog box, click Select group.
a. To locate a group under the selected local provider, type a group name or click Search.
b. Select a group to return to the Manage Users window.
Additional To specify any additional groups to make this user a member of, click Add group.
Groups
Home Directory Type the path to the user's home directory. If you do not specify a path, a directory is automatically
created at /ifs/home/<username>.

UNIX Shell This setting applies only to users who access the file system through SSH. From the list, select a shell.
By default, the /bin/zsh shell is selected.

Account Click the calendar icon to select the expiration date or type the expiration date in the field, and then
Expiration Date type the date in the format <mm>/<dd>/<yyyy>.
Enable the Select this check box to allow the user to authenticate against the local database for SSH, FTP, HTTP,
account and Windows file sharing through SMB. This setting is not used for UNIX file sharing through NFS.
8. Click Create.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Related references
Naming rules for local users and groups

Create a local group

In the local provider of an access zone, you can create groups and assign members to them.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Groups.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
3. From the Providers list, select the local provider for the zone.
4. Click Create Group.
5. In the Group Name field, type a name for the group.
6. Optional: To override automatic allocation of the UNIX group identifier (GID), in the GID field, type a numeric value.
NOTE: You cannot assign a GID that is in use by another group. It is recommended that you leave this field blank to
allow the system to automatically generate the GID.

7. Optional: For each member that you want to add to the group, click Add Members and perform the following tasks in the
Select a User dialog box:
a. Search for either Users, Groups, or Well-known SIDs.
b. If you selected Users or Groups, specify values for the following fields:
User Name
Type all or part of a user name, or leave the field blank to return all users. Wildcard characters are
accepted.
Group Name
Type all or part of a group name, or leave the field blank to return all users. Wildcard characters are
accepted.
Provider

Authentication 105
 Select an authentication provider.
c. Click Search.
d. In the Search Results table, select a user and then click Select.
The dialog box closes.
8. Click Create Group.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Related references
Naming rules for local users and groups

Naming rules for local users and groups

Local user and group names must follow naming rules in order to ensure proper authentication and access to the cluster.
You must adhere to the following naming rules when creating and modifying local users and groups:
● The maximum name length is 104 characters. It is recommended that names do not exceed 64 characters.
● Names cannot contain the following invalid characters:
"/\[]:;|=,+*?<>
● Names can contain any special character that is not in the list of invalid characters. It is recommend that names do not
contain spaces.
● Names are not case sensitive.

Modify a local user

You can modify any setting for a local user account except the user name.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Users.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
3. From the Users list, select the local provider for the access zone.
4. In the list of users, locate the user that you want to update, and then click View/Edit.
The View User Details dialog box appears.
5. Click Edit User.
The Edit User dialog box appears.
6. Update the settings that you want to configure.
7. Click Save Changes.
8. Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Modify a local group

You can add or remove members from a local group.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Groups.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
3. In the list of groups, locate the group that you want to update, and then click View/Edit.
The View Group Details dialog box appears.
4. Click Edit Group.
The Edit Groupr dialog box appears.
5. In the Members area, click Add Members to add users to the group, or click Delete next to a user name to remove the
user from the group.

106 Authentication
6. Click Save Changes.
7. Click Close.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Delete a local user

A deleted user can no longer access the cluster through the command-line interface, web administration interface, or file access
protocol. When you delete a local user account, the corresponding home directory remains in place.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Users.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
3. From the Providers list, select the local provider for the access zone.
4. In the list of users, locate the user that you want to delete, and then click More > Delete.
The Confirm Delete dialog box appears.
5. Click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Delete a local group

You can delete a local group even if members are assigned to it; deleting a group does not affect the members of that group.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Groups.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone.
3. From the Providers list, select the local provider for the access zone.
4. In the list of groups, locate the group that you want to delete, and then click More > Delete.
The Confirm Delete dialog box appears.
5. Click Delete.

Related concepts
Managing local users and groups

Configure a login delay

You can configure a login delay after a login failure.
1. Click Access > Settings.
2. Enter a value (in seconds) the Delay time after login failure field.
3. Click Save changes.

Set a concurrent session limit

You can limit the number of active administrative sessions on any node.
1. Click Access > Settings.
2. Enter a value in the Concurrent sessions limit field. This value defines the maximum number of administrative sessions
that can be active at any time, on a node.
3. Click Save.

Authentication 107
Set a new user account to disable when inactive
You can set a new user account to disable automatically when inactive.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles.
2. On the Users tab, select a provider from the Providers drop-down.
NOTE: This feature is limited to the LOCAL:System provider.
3. Click Create user.
4. Enter the user details and check the box for Disable when inactive.
5. Click Create user to complete the action.

Set an existing user account to disable when inactive

You can set an existing user account to disable automatically when inactive.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles.
2. On the Users tab, select a provider from the Providers drop-down.
NOTE: This feature is limited to the LOCAL:System provider.
3. In the Actions column of the user, click View/Edit.
4. Check the box for Disable when inactive.
5. Click Save to complete the action.

Configure minimum password requirements

You can set minimum password requirements for user accounts.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles > Password Policy.
2. In the Password policy section, check the boxes to enable the criteria required for your password policy.
3. Click Save.

Configure the password hash type

You can configure the hash type for user passwords.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles > Password Policy.
2. In the General settings section, set the hash type by choosing from the drop-down.
3. Click Save.

Set password expiration

You can set a user account to expire.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles > Password Policy.
2. In the Password expiration section, set the expiry criteria for your password policy.
3. Click Save.

Set minimum new password changes

You can require minimum requirements for new user passwords.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles > Password Policy.
2. In the Minimum required change for new password section, set the criteria for your password policy.
3. Click Save.

108 Authentication
Set lock users criteria
You can configure a user account to lock after a specific number of unsuccessful login attempts.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles > Password Policy.
2. In the Lock users section, set the criteria for your password policy.
3. Click Save.

Reset a user password

You can reset the password for an existing user account.
1. Click Access > Membership and roles > Users.
2. In the Actions column for the user, click Actions > Reset Password.
3. Click Yes to confirm.
4. The Reset Password window opens.
5. To view the new password, click Show password.
6. To copy the new password, click Copy new password.
7. Click Close.

Managing SSO
SSO requires configuration of an Identity Provider (IdP) and the Service Provider (SP). After both of those components are
configured, you can enable SSO.

Configure the Identity Provider to communicate with OneFS

The verified Identity Provider (IdP) for OneFS SSO is Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). Other IdPs may work.
This task describes how to set up communication between ADFS and OneFS. You must have an instance of ADFS configured
and running.
All users who intend to log in to OneFS through SSO must have accounts in OneFS and in AD. The following table describes the
requirements for those accounts.

System Requirements
OneFS The OneFS user accounts must have appropriate privileges:
● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI -- This privilege is required to access the WebUI.
● component-specific privileges-- Administrators typically require privileges to manage components.
For example, an SMB administrator needs ISI_PRIV_SMB privilege.
ADFS The corresponding ADFS user account must have an associated email address configured.

For configuration, ADFS offers a Windows Web UI and a command-line interface. You can use either, with the Web UI being
simpler to use. The following instructions use the ADFS command-line interface.
1. Configure an SSO administrator and maintainer.
In OneFS, the user account must have at least one of the following privileges:
● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI - required for the admin to use the OneFS WebUI to administer SSO.
● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH - required for the admin to use the OneFS CLI in SSH sessions to administer SSO.
● ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_CONSOLE - required for the admin to use the OneFS CLI on the console to administer SSO.
2. Add OneFS metadata to ADFS.
a. RDP to the ADFS server.

Authentication 109
 b. Set a variable to a rule that defines who can log in. The following example shows a simple rule that permits all users to log
in. You can define more complex rules that fit the needs of your organization.

$AuthRules = @"
@RuleTemplate="AllowAllAuthzRule" => issue(Type = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/
authorization/claims/permit", Value="true");
"@

c. Set a variable to the rules for getting the Active Directory user email address as the SAML NameID.

$TransformRules = @"
@RuleTemplate = "LdapClaims"
@RuleName = "LDAP mail"
c:[Type == "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ws/2008/06/identity/claims/
windowsaccountname", Issuer == "AD AUTHORITY"]
=> issue(store = "Active Directory",
types = ("http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/
emailaddress"),
query = ";mail;{0}", param = c.Value);

@RuleTemplate = "MapClaims"
@RuleName = "NameID"
c:[Type == "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress"]
=> issue(Type = "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/
nameidentifier",
Issuer = c.Issuer, OriginalIssuer = c.OriginalIssuer, Value = c.Value,
ValueType = c.ValueType,
Properties["http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/
claimproperties/format"] =
"urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress");
"@

d. Configure AD to trust the OneFS WebUI certificate.

e. Create the relying party trust.

Add-AdfsRelyingPartyTrust -Name <OneFS-name> \

-MetadataUrl "https://<onefs-node-ip>:8080/session/1/saml/metadata" \
-IssuanceAuthorizationRules $AuthRules -IssuanceTransformRules $TransformRules

Where:
● <OneFS-name> is the name that you want to represent the cluster in ADFS.
● <onefs-node-ip> is the IP address or DNS name of your OneFS node.

Configure SSO in OneFS

A OneFS administrator can configure SSO per access zone on the WebUI.
1. Log in to the OneFS WebUI.
2. Go to Access > Authentication providers > SSO.
3. Choose an access zone, and click Add IdP. For example, choose the system zone.
NOTE: Each access zone must have an IdP configured for it. It can be the same IdP for all the zones, but each zone
must be configured separately.

4. On the Add Identity Provider screen:

a. Provide a unique name for the IdP. For example: myIDP.
b. Click Next.
c. Upload the XML metadata file that you downloaded from the ADFS system. Alternatively, click Manual and complete the
detailed form. If you choose the manual method, you must have the IdP certificate to upload.
If you choose the Manual method, the following information is required.

110 Authentication
 Field Description
Entity ID Unique identifier of the IdP as configured on the IdP. For example:

http://rw-webui-win01.example.com/adfs/services/trust

Login URL Log in endpoint for the IdP. For example:

http://rw-webui-win01.example.com/adfs/ls/

Logout URL Log out endpoint for the IdP. For example:

http://rw-webui-win01.example.com/adfs/ls/

Binding Select POST or Redirect binding.

Signing Certificate Provide the PEM encoded certificate obtained from the IdP. This certificate is required to
verify messages from the IdP.

d. Repeat this step for each access zone for which you want to configure SSO.
e. Click Next.
5. On the Service Provider screen:
a. Notice that the Current access zone is carried over from the first screen.
b. Select Metadata download or Manual copy, depending on how you want to provide OneFS details about this SP to the
IdP.
c. Provide the hostname or IP address for the SP for the current access zone. For example: 192.1.2.1.
d. Click Generate.
The system generates information about OneFS and this access zone for you to use in configuring the IdP.
e. Obtain the generated information that you can use on the IdP system to prepare it to accept requests from this SP and
access zone.
● If you selected Metadata download above, download the file now. The signing certificate is in the XML file.
● If you selected Manual copy above, use the Copy links in the lower half of the form to copy the information.
Download the Signing Certificate.
f. Click Next.
6. On the Summary screen, review the information.

Enable and test SSO

You can enable SSO in a zone after the IdP and SP are configured.
1. Log in to the OneFS Web UI with ISI_AUTH_PRIV privilege.
2. Go to Access > Authentication providers > SSO.
3. Choose an access zone and click the Enable SSO toggle.
4. Test SSO.
a. In a web browser, go to the OneFS login screen.
You are redirected to the ADFS login screen.
b. Log in to ADFS.
You are given access to OneFS.

Authentication 111
 6
Administrative roles and privileges
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Role-based access
• Roles
• Privileges
• Managing roles

Role-based access
You can assign role-based access to delegate administrative tasks to selected users.
Role-based access control (RBAC) allows the right to perform particular administrative actions to be granted to any user who
can authenticate to a cluster. Security Administrators create roles, assign privileges to the roles, and then assign members. All
administrators, including those given privileges by a role, connect to the System zone to configure the cluster. When these
members log in to the cluster through a configuration interface, they have these privileges. All administrators can configure
settings for access zones, and they always have control over all access zones on the cluster.
Roles also give you the ability to assign privileges (including granular or subprivileges) to member users and groups. By default,
only the root user and the admin user can log in to the web administration interface through HTTP or the command-line
interface through SSH. Using roles, the root and admin users can assign others to integrated or custom roles that have login and
administrative privileges to perform specific administrative tasks.
NOTE: As a best practice, assign users to roles that contain the minimum set of necessary privileges. For most purposes,
the default permission policy settings, system access zone, and integrated roles are sufficient. You can create role-based
access management policies as necessary for your particular environment.

Roles
You can permit and limit access to administrative areas of your cluster on a per-user basis through roles. OneFS includes several
integrated administrator roles with predefined sets of privileges that cannot be modified. You can also create custom roles and
assign privileges to those roles.
The following list describes what you can and cannot do through roles:
● You can assign privileges and subprivileges to a role.
● You can assign privileges and subprivileges to a role as execute/read/no permission, even if the privilege or subprivilege is
write by default.
● You can create custom roles and assign privileges and subprivileges to those roles.
● Using the WebUI, you can copy an existing role.
● If the users can authenticate to the cluster, you can add any user or group of users, including well-known groups, to a role.
● You can add a user or group to more than one role.
● You cannot assign privileges and subprivileges directly to users or groups.
When a user belongs to multiple roles, that user's overall privilege consists of the total of all the sets of privileges set for
all the roles to which the user belongs. If a particular privilege is configured in multiple roles, the user is granted the highest
permission. A top-level or parent privilege that was explicitly assigned to a role has precedence over a privilege or subprivilege
that is inherited by the role.
OneFS determines privilege as follows:
1. OneFS obtains the union of all sets of privileges for all the roles that the user belongs to.
2. OneFS recalculates the inherited privileges and subprivileges for every explicitly granted parent privilege.
If you explicitly grant a new privilege to a role, OneFS recalculates the inherited privileges based on the new privilege.

112 Administrative roles and privileges

 NOTE: When OneFS is first installed, only users with root- or admin-level access can log in and assign users to roles.

What you can do with privileges through roles applies equally to subprivileges.

Custom roles
Custom roles supplement integrated roles.
You can create custom roles and assign privileges that are mapped to administrative areas in your cluster environment. For
example, you can create separate administrator roles for security, auditing, storage provisioning, and backup.
You can designate certain privileges as no permission, read, execute, or write when adding the privilege to a role. You can modify
this option at any time to add or remove privileges as user responsibilities grow and change.

OneFS roles
OneFS includes integrated roles that are configured with the most likely privileges and subprivileges that are required to perform
common administrative functions. You can assign users and groups to OneFS integrated roles, but you cannot modify their
privileges.
OneFS provides the following integrated administrative roles:
● SecurityAdmin
● SystemAdmin
● AuditAdmin
● BackupAdmin
● VMwareAdmin
OneFS also provides an integrated role that is configured with appropriate privileges for APEX File Storage Services users:
BasicUserRole.

SecurityAdmin integrated role

The SecurityAdmin integrated role enables security configuration on the cluster, including authentication providers, local users
and groups, and role membership.

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_CONSOLE Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH Read
ISI_PRIV_AUTH Write
ISI_PRIV_ROLE Write

SystemAdmin integrated role

The SystemAdmin integrated role enables administration of all cluster configuration that is not specifically handled by the
SecurityAdmin role.

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_CONSOLE Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH Read
ISI_PRIV_SYS_SHUTDOWN Read
ISI_PRIV_SYS_SUPPORT Read

Administrative roles and privileges 113

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_SYS_TIME Write
ISI_PRIV_SYS_UPGRADE Write
ISI_PRIV_ANTIVIRUS Write
ISI_PRIV_AUDIT Write
ISI_PRIV_CERTIFICATE Write
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS Write
ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER Write
ISI_PRIV_CONFIGURATION Write
ISI_PRIV_DEVICES Write
ISI_PRIV_EVENT Write
ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER Write
ISI_PRIV_FTP Write
ISI_PRIV_GET_SET Read
ISI_PRIV_HARDENING Write
ISI_PRIV_HDFS Write
ISI_PRIV_HTTP Write
ISI_PRIV_IPMI Write
ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE Write
ISI_PRIV_KEY_MANAGER Write
ISI_PRIV_LICENSE Write
ISI_PRIV_MONITORING Read
ISI_PRIV_NDMP Write
ISI_PRIV_NETWORK Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS Write
ISI_PRIV_NTP Write
ISI_PRIV_PAPI_CONFIG Write
ISI_PRIV_PERFORMANCE Write
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA Write
ISI_PRIV_REMOTE_SUPPORT Write
ISI_PRIV_S3 Write
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS Write
ISI_PRIV_SMB Write
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT Write
ISI_PRIV_SNMP Write
ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS Write
ISI_PRIV_SWIFT Write
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ Write
ISI_PRIV_VCENTER Write

114 Administrative roles and privileges

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_WORM Write
ISI_PRIV_ESRS_DOWNLOAD Write
ISI_PRIV_NS_TRAVERSE Read
ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS Read

AuditAdmin integrated role

The AuditAdmin integrated role enables you to view all system configuration settings.
Because the AuditAdmin integrated role is designed only for viewing system configuration settings, privileges are granted as
Read.

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_CONSOLE Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH Read
ISI_PRIV_SYS_TIME Read
ISI_PRIV_SYS_UPGRADE Read
ISI_PRIV_ANTIVIRUS Read
ISI_PRIV_AUDIT Read
ISI_PRIV_CERTIFICATE Read
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS Read
ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER Read
ISI_PRIV_CONFIGURATION Read
ISI_PRIV_DEVICES Read
ISI_PRIV_EVENT Read
ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER Read
ISI_PRIV_FTP Read
ISI_PRIV_GET_SET Read
ISI_PRIV_HARDENING Read
ISI_PRIV_HDFS Read
ISI_PRIV_HTTP Read
ISI_PRIV_IPMI Read
ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE Read
ISI_PRIV_KEY_MANAGER Read
ISI_PRIV_LICENSE Read
ISI_PRIV_MONITORING Read
SI_PRIV_NDMP Read
ISI_PRIV_NETWORK Read
ISI_PRIV_NFS Read
ISI_PRIV_NTP Read

Administrative roles and privileges 115

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_PAPI_CONFIG Read
ISI_PRIV_PERFORMANCE Read
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA Read
ISI_PRIV_REMOTE_SUPPORT Read
ISI_PRIV_S3 Read
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS Read
ISI_PRIV_SMB Read
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT Read
ISI_PRIV_SNMP Read
ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS Read
ISI_PRIV_SWIFT Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ Read
ISI_PRIV_VCENTER Read
ISI_PRIV_WORM Read

BackupAdmin integrated role

The BackupAdmin integrated role enables backup and restore of files from /ifs.

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_IFS_BACKUP Read
ISI_PRIV_IFS_RESTORE Read

VMwareAdmin integrated role

The VMwareAdmin integrated role enables remote administration of storage that VMware vCenter needs.

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI Read
ISI_PRIV_NETWORK Write
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS Write
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT Write
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ Write
ISI_PRIV_VCENTER Write
ISI_PRIV_NS_TRAVERSE Read
ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS Read

116 Administrative roles and privileges

BasicUserRole integrated role
The BasicUserRole integrated role provides limited permissions appropriate for APEX File Storage Services users.

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI Read
ISI_PRIV_AUTH Read
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_PROVIDERS No permission
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_SETTINGS_ACLS No permission
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_SETTINGS_GLOBAL No permission
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_ZONES No permission
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS No permission
ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER Write
ISI_PRIV_HDFS Write
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_RACKS No permission
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_SETTINGS Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS Read
ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_GLOBAL No permission
ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_ZONE No permission
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA Write
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT Write
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_EFFICIENCYRATIO No permission
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_REDUCTIONRATIO No permission
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_THRESHOLDSON Read
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_USAGE_FSPHYSICAL No permission
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_REPORTS Read
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SETTINGS Write
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SUMMARY Read
ISI_PRIV_S3 Write
ISI_PRIV_S3_MYKEYS No permission
ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS Write
ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS_GLOBAL No permission
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS Write
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STATUS Read
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL No permission
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_POOLDETAILS No permission
ISI_PRIV_SMB Write
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SESSIONS Read
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS No permission

Administrative roles and privileges 117

Privileges Permission
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS_GLOBAL No permission
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS_SHARE No permission
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT Write
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_PENDING Read
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_RESTORE No permission
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SETTING No permission
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SNAPSHOTMANAGEMENT Write
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SUMMARY Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ Write
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_CERTIFICATES_SERVER No permission
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_CERTIFICATES_TARGET Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_POLICIES Write
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_POLICY_SOURCENETWORK Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_REPORTS Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_DEFAULT_POLICY_SETTINGS No permission
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_SETTINGS Read
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_SETTINGS_CLUSTER_ No permission
CERTIFICATE_ID

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_SETTINGS_ No permission
PREFERRED_RPO_ALERT

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_SETTINGS_RPO_ No permission
ALERTS

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_REPORT_SETTINGS No permission
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_SERVICE No permission
ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS Read

Privileges
Privileges permit users to complete tasks on a cluster.
Privileges are associated with an area of cluster administration such as Job Engine, SMB, Quotas, or statistics. Privileges enable
you to control the actions that a user or role can perform within a particular area of cluster administration.
In OneFS 9.3.0.0 and later, privileges are granular: each area of cluster administration is associated with a top-level privilege,
the feature or parent privilege. Each parent privilege can have one or more subprivileges, which can also have subprivileges.
Granular privileges enable you to control the specific actions that a user can perform within a cluster administration area in a
detailed way.
Privilege levels are as follows:
● Feature: the top-level privilege associated with an area of cluster administration, such as quotas (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA).
● Entity (sub-feature): a subprivilege associated with a specific function of an area of cluster administration. For example,
quota reports (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_REPORTS), quota settings (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SETTINGS), or quota management
(ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT). Entity-level privileges can have subprivileges.

118 Administrative roles and privileges

● Attribute (properties of a feature or sub-feature): the properties associated with an area of cluster administration. For
example, quotas' physical usage of the file system (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_USAGE_FSPHYSICAL), the
quota threshold size on which to enforce limits (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_THRESHOLDON), the ratio of
logical space to physical space used for quotas (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_EFFICIENCYRATIO). Attribute-
level privileges can also have subprivileges.
For example, the feature-level (parent) privilege ISI_PRIV_QUOTA enables monitoring and enforcing storage limits. Grant
entity-level privileges (subprivileges) to control the specific quota management-related actions that a user or role can
perform. Grant attribute-level privileges to control access to specific properties of quota management-related actions, including
management, tracking, and limiting storage of an entity or directory, or configuring the ratio of logical space to physical space.
Grant the feature-level privilege first. Granting the feature-level privilege to a user or role grants all privileges, subprivileges,
and permissions associated with that privilege. Granting subprivileges is optional. Grant subprivileges to restrict or fine-tune the
access and activities allowed to users or roles. If a subprivilege also has subprivileges, grant the parent subprivilege before you
grant the lower-level subprivileges. Subprivileges cannot be higher than their parent privilege or subprivilege.
Privileges have the following forms:

Write (w) Grants write, execute, and read access privileges to a role or user. Allows a role or user to view, create,
modify, and delete a configuration subsystem such as statistics, snapshots, or quotas. For example,
the ISI_PRIV_QUOTA privilege with write permission allows an administrator to create, schedule, and
run quota reports and to configure quota notification rules. Write permission allows performing the API
operations GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE.
Execute (x) Grants execute and read access privileges to a role or user. Allows a role or user to initiate API operations
such as PUT, POST or Delete for specific URIs on a configuration subsystem without granting write
privileges to that role or user. The specific URIs on which execute privileges can be granted do not
perform write operations. The specific URIs are /sync/policies/<POLICY>, /sync/jobs, /sync/
jobs/<JOB>, /sync/policies/<POLICY>/reset, and /sync/rules/<RULE>.
Read (r) Grants the read access privilege to a role or user. Allows a role or user to view a configuration subsystem.
The role or user cannot modify configuration settings. Read permission allows performing the API
operation GET.
No permission (-) The privilege is not granted to the role or user. The role or user has no access to the privilege.

Privileges are granted to the user on login to a cluster through the OneFS API, the web administration interface, SSH, or a
console session. A token is generated for the user that includes a list of all privileges that are granted to that user. Each
URI, web-administration interface page, and command requires a specific privilege to view or modify the information available
through any of these interfaces.
Sometimes, privileges cannot be granted or there are privilege limitations.
● Privileges are not granted to users that do not connect to the System Zone during login or to users that connect through
the deprecated Telnet service, even if they are members of a role.
● Privileges do not provide administrative access to configuration paths outside of the OneFS API. For example, the
ISI_PRIV_SMB privilege does not grant a user the right to configure SMB shares using the Microsoft Management Console
(MMC).
● Privileges do not provide administrative access to all log files. Most log files require root access.
● Privileges can be denied to users and roles using No permission.
The privilege ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH and its subprivileges ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH_GROUPS and
ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH_USERS provide limited administrative privileges for groups and users. Administrators with
the ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH privilege can modify only those groups and users with the same or less privilege as
the administrator. Administrators with the ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH_GROUPS or ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH_USERS
privileges can modify only those groups or users with the same privilege as the administrator. For example, you can grant the
ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH privilege to a help desk administrator to perform basic user management operations without
having the full abilities of the ISI_PRIV_AUTH privilege.

Supported OneFS privileges

Use OneFS privileges to grant specific types of actions or access to the user. For example, login, security, and configuration
privileges.
OneFS supports the following types of privileges:
● Login privileges
● System privileges

Administrative roles and privileges 119

● Security privileges
● Configuration privileges
● File access privileges
● Namespace privileges
The permissions listed for each privilege in the following tables are the highest permissions allowed for each type of privilege.

Login privileges
The login privileges listed in the following table either allow the user to perform specific actions or grants access to an area of
administration on the cluster. The permission listed for each privilege is the highest permission allowed.

Privilege Description Permission

ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_CONSOLE Log in from the console. Read
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI Log in to the Platform API and the web Read
administration interface.
ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH Log in through SSH. Read

System privileges
The system privileges listed in the following table either allow the user to perform specific actions or grant access to an area
of administration on the cluster. Permission types are No permission (-), Read (r), Execute (x), and Write (w). The permission
listed for each privilege is the highest permission allowed.

Privilege Description Permission

ISI_PRIV_SYS_SHUTDOWN Shut down the system. Read
ISI_PRIV_SYS_SUPPORT Run cluster diagnostic tools. Read
ISI_PRIV_SYS_TIME Change the system time. Write
ISI_PRIV_SYS_UPGRADE Upgrades the OneFS system. Write

Security privileges
The following table describes the privileges and subprivileges that allow users to assign privileges to others. Subprivileges inherit
their permission type from their parent privilege. Permission types are No permission (-), Read (r), Execute (x), and Write (w).
The permission listed for each privilege is the highest permission allowed.

Privilege / Subprivilege Description Permission

ISI_PRIV_AUTH Configure external authentication Write
providers, including root-level accounts.
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_GROUPS User groups from authentication provider Write
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_PROVIDERS Configure authentication providers Write
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_RULES User mapping rules Write
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_SETTINGS_ACLS Configure ACL policy settings Write
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_SETTINGS_GLOBAL Configure global authentication settings Write
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_USERS Users from authentication providers Write
ISI_PRIV_AUTH_ZONES Configure access zones Write
ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH Find and list users, set user passwords, Write
unlock user accounts, and add or remove
users and groups. Administrators with this

120 Administrative roles and privileges

Privilege / Subprivilege Description Permission
privilege can modify only users and groups
that have the same or less privilege.
ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH_ Configure groups with the same or less Write
privilege.
GROUPS

ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH_USERS Configure users with the same or less Write

privilege.
ISI_PRIV_ROLE Create roles and assign privileges, Write
including root-level accounts.

Configuration privileges
The configuration privileges that are listed in the following tables either allow the user to perform specific actions or grant no
permission, read, execute, or write access to an area of administration on the cluster.
When working with privileges:
● Grant the parent or top-level privilege before granting subprivileges. Subprivileges initially inherit their properties and
permission type from their parent or top-level privileges.
● You can explicitly add subprivileges with less permission than the parent privilege.
● You can change the permission type as appropriate for your requirements.
Permission types are:
● No permission (-)
● Read (r)
● Execute (x)
● Write (w)
The following table lists and describes the feature-level (parent) privileges. Feature-level privileges have a parent ID of
ISI_PRIV_ZERO and are marked with *. Tables listing the subprivileges for each top-level privilege follow. The permission
listed for each privilege is the highest permission allowed.

Privilege Description Permission

ISI_PRIV_ANTIVIRUS Configure anti-virus scanning. Write
ISI_PRIV_AUDIT Configure audit capabilities. Write
ISI_PRIV_CERTIFICATE Configure cluster TLS certificates. Write
* ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS Configure CloudPools. Write
ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER Configure cluster identity and general settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER_MODE Set the cluster mode. Write
ISI_PRIV_CONFIGURATION Configure import/export settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_DEVICES Create roles and assign privileges. Write
ISI_PRIV_EVENT View and modify system events. Write
* ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER Configure file filtering settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_FTP Configure FTP server. Write
ISI_PRIV_GET_SET View and set per-file OneFS metadata. Write
ISI_PRIV_HARDENING Harden cluster security profile. Write
* ISI_PRIV_HDFS Configure HDFS server. Write
ISI_PRIV_HTTP Configure HTTP server. Write
ISI_PRIV_IPMI Configure remote IPMI management settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE Schedule cluster-wide jobs. Write

Administrative roles and privileges 121

Privilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_KEY_MANAGER Configure key management settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_LICENSE Activate OneFS software licenses. Write
ISI_PRIV_MONITORING Register applications monitoring the cluster. Write
ISI_PRIV_NDMP Configure NDMP server. Write
ISI_PRIV_NETWORK Configure network interfaces. Write
*ISI_PRIV_NFS Configure the NFS server. Write
ISI_PRIV_NTP Configure NTP. Write
ISI_PRIV_PAPI_CONFIG Configure the platform API and WebUI. Write
ISI_PRIV_PERFORMANCE Configure performance resource accounting. Write
* ISI_PRIV_QUOTA Monitor and enforce administrator-defined storage limits. Write
ISI_PRIV_REMOTE_SUPPORT Configure remote support. Write
* ISI_PRIV_S3 Configure the S3 server. Write
* ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS Configure storage pools. Write
* ISI_PRIV_SMB Configure the SMB server. Write
* ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT Schedule, take, and view snapshots. Write
ISI_PRIV_SNMP Configure SNMP server. Write
ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS View file system performance statistics. Write
ISI_PRIV_SWIFT Configure Swift. Write
* ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ Configure SyncIQ. Write
ISI_PRIV_VCENTER Configure VMware for vCenter. Write
ISI_PRIV_WORM Configure SmartLock directories. Write

Subprivilege tables
The following tables list and describe the subprivileges for feature-level (ISI_PRIV_ZERO) privileges. Subprivileges inherit their
privileges from their parent privilege. Some of these subprivileges also have subprivileges and are marked with *. The permission
listed for each subprivilege is the highest permission allowed. Subprivilege permissions cannot be higher than their parent
privilege permissions.

Table 2. Cloudpools subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS_ACCOUNTS Configure cloud storage account information and Write
settings.
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS_CERTIFICATES Configure cloud storage account certificates. Write
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS_POOLS Configure cloud pools based on cloud accounts. Write
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS_PROXIES Configure proxies for cloud storage access. Write
ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS_SETTINGS Configure cloud storage settings. Write

Table 3. File filter subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER_SETTINGS Configure the file filtering service and filter settings. Write

122 Administrative roles and privileges

Table 4. HDFS subprivileges ISI_PRIV_HDFS
Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_PROXYUSERS Configure the HDFS proxy users and Write
members.
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_RACKS Configure the HDFS virtual rack settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_RANGERPLUGIN_SETTINGS Configure the Ranger plug-in settings. Write
* ISI_PRIV_HDFS_SETTINGS Configure the HDFS Service, protocol, Write
and Ambari server settings.
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_FSIMAGE_JOB_SETTINGS Configure the HDFS FSImage job Write
settings.
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_FSIMAGE_SETTINGS Configure the HDFS FSImage service Write
settings.
ISI_PRIV_HDFS_INOTIFY_SETTINGS Configure the HDFS Inotify service Write
settings.

Table 5. NFS subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_NFS

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_NFS_ALIASES Configure aliases for export directory names. Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS_EXPORTS Configure NFS exports and permissions. Write
* ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS Configure NFS exports and related settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_EXPORT Configure NFS export and user mapping settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_GLOBAL Configure NFS global and service settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_NFS_SETTINGS_ZONE Configure NFS zone-related settings. Write

Table 6. Quota subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_QUOTA

Subprivilege Description Permission
*ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT Configure quotas to manage, track, and Write
limit storage of an entity or directory.
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_ Configure the ratio of logical space to Write
physical space used.
EFFICIENCYRATIO

ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_ Configure the ratio of logical space to Write

physical space post data reduction.
REDUCTIONRATIO

ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_ Set the threshold size type on which to Write

enforce quota limits.
THRESHOLDSON

ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_QUOTAMANAGEMENT_ Configure the file system physical usage Write

size.
USAGE_FSPHYSICAL

ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_REPORTS Enable managing, running, and viewing Write

quota reports.
*ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SETTINGS Manage quota reporting and notification Write
settings.
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SETTINGS_MAPPINGS Configure quota email mapping settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SETTINGS_NOTIFICATIONS Configure quota notification rule and Write
schedule settings.

Administrative roles and privileges 123

Table 6. Quota subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_QUOTA (continued)
Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SETTINGS_REPORTS Configure scheduled and manual reporting Write
settings.
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA_SUMMARY Configure quota-based counts and Write
statistics.

Table 7. S3 service subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_S3

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_S3_BUCKETS Configure S3 buckets and ACL. Write
ISI_PRIV_S3_MYKEYS Configure S3 key management. Write
* ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS Configure S3 global and zone settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS_GLOBAL Configure S3 global and service settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_S3_SETTINGS_ZONE Configure S3 zone-related settings. Write

Table 8. SmartPools subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_FILEPOOL_DEFAULT_ Configure the default filepool policy. Write
POLICY

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_FILEPOOL_POLICIES Define filepools based on files and Write

actions.
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_FILEPOOL_ Define preconfigured templates for Write
typical work flows.
TEMPLATES

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STATUS View and manage status of storage Write

pools.
*ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL Configure and view storage pools. Write
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Pool of storage from group of nodes Write
NODEPOOLS

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Cluster node type. Write

NODETYPES

*ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Storage pools details and usage. Write

POOLDETAILS

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Usage details of storage pool. Write

POOLDETAILS_USAGE

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Storage and action settings for Write

Smartpools.
SETTINGS

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Storage tiering. Write

TIERS

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS_STORAGEPOOL_ Unprovisioned drives and LNNs. Write

UNPROVISIONED

124 Administrative roles and privileges

Table 9. SMB service subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_SMB
Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SESSIONS Active SMB sessions. Write
* ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS View and manage SMB service settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS_GLOBAL Configure SMB global and service settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SETTINGS_SHARE Configure SMB filter and share settings. Write
ISI_PRIV_SMB_SHARES Manage SMB shares and permissions. Write

Table 10. Snapshot management subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_ALIAS Configure snapshot aliases. Write
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_PENDING Upcoming snapshot based on Write
schedules.
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_RESTORE Restoring directory to a Write
particular snapshot.
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SCHEDULES Scheduling for periodic Write
snapshots.
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SETTING Service and access settings. Write
* ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SNAPSHOTMANAGEMENT Manual snapshots and locks. Write
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_LOCKS Locking of snapshots from Write
deletion.
ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT_SUMMARY Snapshot summary and usage Write
details.

Table 11. SyncIQ data replication subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ

Subprivilege Description Permission
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_CERTIFICATES_SERVER Manage server certificates for Write
secure replication.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_CERTIFICATES_TARGET Manage target cluster Write
certificates.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_JOBS Manage ongoing data Write
replication jobs.
* ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_POLICIES Configure policies and Write
scheduling for data replication
between clusters.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_POLICY_SOURCENETWORK Configure the network of the Write
replication source cluster.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_REPORTS Manage SyncIQ policy and job Write
reports.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_RULES Configure SyncIQ performance Write
rule limits and schedules.
* ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS Configure SyncIQ service, Write
policy and report settings.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_SERVICE Configure the SyncIQ service Write
settings.
* ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_REPORT_ SyncIQ report settings Write

Administrative roles and privileges 125

Table 11. SyncIQ data replication subprivileges: ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ (continued)
Subprivilege Description Permission

SETTINGS

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_REPORT_ Configure the SyncIQ report Write

maximum age settings.
SETTINGS_REPORT_MAX_AGE

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_REPORT_ Configure the SyncIQ Write

maximum report count
SETTINGS_REPORT_MAX_ COUNT
settings.
* ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_SETTINGS Configure the SyncIQ global Write
settings.
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_ Configure the SyncIQ cluster Write
certificate for global settings.
SETTINGS_CLUSTER_ CERTIFICATE_ID

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_ Configure the global SyncIQ Write

encryption settings.
SETTINGS_ENCRYPTION_ REQUIRED

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_ Configure the global SyncIQ Write

preferred RPO alert settings.
SETTINGS_PREFERRED_ RPO_ALERT

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_GLOBAL_ Configure the global SyncIQ Write

RPO alert settings.
SETTINGS_RPO_ALERTS

* ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_DEFAULT_ Configure the default SyncIQ Write

policy settings.
POLICY_SETTINGS

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_SETTINGS_DEFAULT_ Configure the default SyncIQ Write

policy for restricted targets
POLICY_SETTINGS_RESTRICT_TARGET_
network settings.
NETWORK

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_TARGET_POLICIES Manage the SyncIQ target Write

policies for the cluster .
ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ_TARGET_REPORTS Manage the SyncIQ target Write
reports and details.

File access privileges

The file access privileges listed in the following table either allow the user to perform specific actions or grants access
permissions, as appropriate, to an area of administration on the cluster. Permission types are No permission (-), Read (r),
Execute (x), and Write (w). The permission listed for each privilege is the highest permission allowed.

Privilege Description Permission

ISI_PRIV_IFS_BACKUP Back up files from /ifs. Bypass file permission checks and Read
grant all read permissions.
NOTE: This privilege circumvents traditional file access
checks, such as mode bits or NTFS ACLs.

ISI_PRIV_IFS_RESTORE Restore files from /ifs. Bypass file permission checks and Read
grant all read permissions.
NOTE: This privilege circumvents traditional file access
checks, such as mode bits or NTFS ACLs.

ISI_PRIV_IFS_WORM_DELETE Perform privileged delete operation on WORM committed Write

files.

126 Administrative roles and privileges

Privilege Description Permission

NOTE: If you are not logged in through the

root user account, you must also have the
ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS privilege.

ISI_PRIV_ESRS_DOWNLOAD Schedule file downloads through ESRS. Write

Namespace privileges
The namespace privileges listed in the following table allow the user to perform specific actions or grant access permissions, as
appropriate, to an area of administration on the cluster. Permission types are No permission (-), Read (r), Execute (x), and Write
(w). The permission listed for each privilege is the highest permission allowed.

Privilege Description Permission

ISI_PRIV_NS_TRAVERSE Traverse and view directory metadata. Read
ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS Access the /ifs directory through the OneFS API. Read

Data backup and restore privileges

You can assign privileges to a user that are explicitly for cluster data backup and restore actions.
Two privileges allow a user to backup and restore cluster data over supported client-side protocols: ISI_PRIV_IFS_BACKUP and
ISI_PRIV_IFS_RESTORE.
CAUTION: These privileges circumvent traditional file access checks, such as mode bits or NTFS ACLs.

Most cluster privileges allow changes to cluster configuration in some manner. The backup and restore privileges allow access to
cluster data from the System zone, the traversing of all directories, and reading of all file data and metadata regardless of file
permissions.
Users assigned these privileges use the protocol as a backup protocol to another machine without generating access-denied
errors and without connecting as the root user. These two privileges are supported over the following client-side protocols:
● SMB
● NFS
● OneFS API
● FTP
● SSH
Over SMB, the ISI_PRIV_IFS_BACKUP and ISI_PRIV_IFS_RESTORE privileges emulate the Windows privileges
SE_BACKUP_NAME and SE_RESTORE_NAME. The emulation means that normal file-open procedures are protected by
file system permissions. To enable the backup and restore privileges over the SMB protocol, you must open files with the
FILE_OPEN_FOR_BACKUP_INTENT option, which occurs automatically through Windows backup software such as Robocopy.
Application of the option is not automatic when files are opened through general file browsing software such as Windows File
Explorer.
Both ISI_PRIV_IFS_BACKUP and ISI_PRIV_IFS_RESTORE privileges primarily support Windows backup tools such as
Robocopy. A user must be a member of the BackupAdmin built-in role to access all Robocopy features, which includes copying
file DACL and SACL metadata.

Command-line interface privileges

You can perform most tasks granted by a privilege through the command-line interface (CLI). Some OneFS commands require
root access.
Each CLI command is associated with a privilege. Some commands require root access. See the OneFS Web Administration
Guide or the OneFS CLI Administration Guide for which privilege is associated with each command.

Administrative roles and privileges 127

Command-to-privilege mapping
Each CLI command is associated with a privilege. Some commands require root access.

isi command Privilege

isi antivirus ISI_PRIV_ANTIVIRUS
isi audit ISI_PRIV_AUDIT
isi auth, excluding isi auth roles ISI_PRIV_AUTH
isi auth roles ISI_PRIV_ROLE
isi batterystatus ISI_PRIV_DEVICES
isi certificate ISI_PRIV_CERTIFICATE
isi cloud ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS
isi cluster ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER
isi config root
isi dedupe, excluding isi dedupe stats ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE
isi dedupe stats ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS
isi devices ISI_PRIV_DEVICES
isi diagnostics ISI_PRIV_SYS_SUPPORT
isi email ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER
isi event ISI_PRIV_EVENT
isi fc ISI_PRIV_NDMP
isi file-filter ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER
isi filepool ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS
isi ftp ISI_PRIV_FTP
isi get root
isi hardening ISI_PRIV_HARDENING
isi hdfs ISI_PRIV_HDFS
isi http ISI_PRIV_HTTP
isi ipmi ISI_PRIV_IPMI
isi job ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE
isi license ISI_PRIV_LICENSE
isi ndmp ISI_PRIV_NDMP
isi network ISI_PRIV_NETWORK
isi nfs ISI_PRIV_NFS
isi ntp ISI_PRIV_NTP
isi performance ISI_PRIV_PERFORMANCE
isi quota ISI_PRIV_QUOTA
isi readonly ISI_PRIV_DEVICES
isi s3 ISI_PRIV_S3
isi servicelight ISI_PRIV_DEVICES

128 Administrative roles and privileges

isi command Privilege
isi services root
isi set root
isi smb ISI_PRIV_SMB
isi snapshot ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT
isi snmp ISI_PRIV_SNMP
isi ssh settings modify ISI_PRIV_AUTH
isi statistics ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS
isi status ISI_PRIV_EVENT
ISI_PRIV_DEVICES
ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE
ISI_PRIV_NETWORK
ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS
ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS

isi storagepool ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS

isi swift ISI_PRIV_SWIFT
isi sync ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ
isi tape ISI_PRIV_NDMP
isi time ISI_PRIV_SYS_TIME
isi upgrade ISI_PRIV_SYS_UPGRADE
isi version ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER
isi worm excluding isi worm files delete ISI_PRIV_WORM
isi worm files delete ISI_PRIV_IFS_WORM_DELETE
isi zone ISI_PRIV_AUTH

Privilege-to-command mapping
Each privilege is associated with one or more commands. Some commands require root access.

Privilege isi commands

ISI_PRIV_ANTIVIRUS isi antivirus
ISI_PRIV_AUDIT isi audit
ISI_PRIV_AUTH isi auth - excluding isi auth role
isi zone

ISI_PRIV_CLOUDPOOLS isi cloud

ISI_PRIV_CLUSTER isi email
isi version

ISI_PRIV_DEVICES isi batterystatus

isi devices
isi readonly
isi servicelight

Administrative roles and privileges 129

Privilege isi commands

isi status

ISI_PRIV_EVENT isi event

isi status

ISI_PRIV_FILE_FILTER isi file-filter

ISI_PRIV_FTP isi ftp
ISI_PRIV_HARDENING isi hardening
ISI_PRIV_HDFS isi hdfs
ISI_PRIV_HTTP isi http
ISI_PRIV_JOB_ENGINE isi job
isi dedupe
isi status

ISI_PRIV_LICENSE isi license

ISI_PRIV_NDMP isi fc
isi tape
isi ndmp

ISI_PRIV_NETWORK isi network

isi status

ISI_PRIV_NFS isi nfs

ISI_PRIV_NTP isi ntp
ISI_PRIV_QUOTA isi quota
ISI_PRIV_RESTRICTED_AUTH isi auth
isi auth users
isi auth groups
isi auth status
isi auth mapping token

ISI_PRIV_ROLE isi auth role

ISI_PRIV_SMARTPOOLS isi filepool
isi storagepool
isi status

ISI_PRIV_SMB isi smb

ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT isi snapshot
ISI_PRIV_SNMP isi snmp
ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS isi status
isi statistics
isi dedupe stats

ISI_PRIV_SWIFT isi swift

ISI_PRIV_SYNCIQ isi sync
ISI_PRIV_SYS_TIME isi time

130 Administrative roles and privileges

Privilege isi commands
ISI_PRIV_SYS_UPGRADE isi upgrade
ISI_PRIV_WORM isi worm excluding isi worm files delete
ISI_PRIV_IFS_WORM_DELETE isi worm files delete
root ● isi config
● isi get
● isi services
● isi set

Managing roles
You can view, add, or remove members of any role. Except for integrated roles, whose privileges you cannot modify, you can
add or remove OneFS privileges on a role-by-role basis. You can copy and delete roles.
The role workflow navigation bar appears across the top of each role task window. The navigation bar indicates each step in the
creation or update process:

Basic settings > Members > Privileges > Summary

OneFS highlights each step as you go. To return to a previous step, click that step in the navigation bar.
NOTE: Roles take both users and groups as members. If a group is added to a role, all users who are members of that group
are assigned the privileges that are associated with the role. Similarly, members of multiple roles are assigned the combined
privileges of each role.

Create a custom role

You can create a custom role and add privileges, subprivileges, and members to that role. Return to a previous step by clicking
that step on the workflow navigation bar.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. Click Create a Role.
The Basic settings window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
3. In the Role Name field, type a name for the role.
The role name must follow POSIX naming conventions. For example, the role name should not contain spaces or hyphens.
4. In the Description field, type a description, and then click Next.
The Members window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
5. Click Add Member to add a member to the role, and then click Next.
See Add a member to a role for instructions.
The Privileges window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
6. In the Permission column, click one or more permissions to assign access rights and privileges.
Permissions are - (no permission), R (read), X (run), and W (write).
a. To assign subprivileges, click the down arrow of the parent privilege to view and assign subprivileges.
7. Click Next.
The Summary window appears and its workflow step is highlighted. Review the settings, and then click Submit to create
the custom role or Cancel to cancel role creation.

Modify a role
You can modify the description and the user or group membership of any role, including integrated roles. You can modify the
name and privileges only of custom roles. Return to a previous step by clicking that step on the workflow navigation bar.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. In the Roles area, select a role and click View / Edit.

Administrative roles and privileges 131

 The Edit role details window appears. The workflow navigation bar Basic settings step is highlighted.
3. Modify the role name and description as needed, and then click Next.
The Members window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
4. Modify the members as needed and then click Next.
See Add a member to a role for instructions.
The Privileges window appears and its workflow step is highlighted.
5. Modify the privileges as needed by clicking the appropriate permissions in the Permission column.
Permissions are - (no permission), R (read), X (run), and W (write).
a. To assign subprivileges, click the down arrow of the parent privilege to view and assign subprivileges.
b. When you finish, click Next.
The Summary window appears.
6. Review the modified role, and then click Submit.

Copy a role
You can copy an existing role and add or remove privileges and members for that role as needed.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. In the Roles area, select a role and click More > Copy.
3. Modify the role name, description, members, and privileges as needed.
4. Click Submit.

Add a privilege to a custom role

You can add or remove privileges to a custom role as needed. You can designate certain privileges as no permission, read-only,
read-run, or read/write. You cannot modify the privileges that are assigned to an integrated role.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. Click View/Edit for the role to modify.
3. Click the Privileges button on the workflow navigation bar.
The Privileges window appears.
4. In the Permission column, click one or more permissions to assign access rights and privileges.
Permissions are - (no permission), R (read), X (run), and W (write).
a. To assign subprivileges, click the down arrow of the parent privilege to view and assign subprivileges.
5. Click Next.
The Summary window appears. Review the settings, and then click Submit to update the permissions for this role or
Cancel.

Add a member to a role

You can add one or more members to a role when creating, copying, or modifying the role. A user or a group can be a member of
more than one role. The privileges associated with a role are granted to all members of that role.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. Click View/Edit for the role to modify.
3. Click the Members button on the workflow navigation bar.
The Members window appears.
4. Click Add Member.
The Search member dialog box appears.
5. Select one of following options:
● Users
● Groups
● Well-known SIDs
6. If you selected User or Group, locate the user or group through one of the following methods:
● Type the Username or Group Name you want to search for in the text field.

132 Administrative roles and privileges

 ● Select the authentication provider you want to search for from the Providers list. Only providers that are currently
configured and enabled on the cluster are listed.
7. Click Search.
8. Select a user name, group name, or a well-known SID from the search results to add as members to the role.
9. Click Select user.

Delete a custom role

Deleting a custom role does not affect the privileges or users that are assigned to it. You cannot delete integrated roles.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. In the Roles area, select one or more roles, and then perform one of the following actions:
● To delete a single role, click More > Delete from the Actions column against the selected role.
● To delete multiple roles, select Delete from the Select a bulk action list.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

View a role
You can view information about integrated and custom roles.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. In the Roles area, select a role and click View / Edit.
The Edit role details window appears.
3. Use the roles workflow navigation bar to view the basic settings, members, and privileges for the role.
4. Click Cancel to return to the Membership & Roles page.

View privileges
You can view user privileges.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Roles.
2. Click View/Edit for the role for which to view privileges.
3. Click the Privileges button on the workflow navigation bar.
The Privileges window appears.
4. Scroll to view the privileges in the Permission column.
Permissions are - (no permission), R (read), X (run), and W (write).
5. Click Cancel to return to the Membership and Roles page.

Administrative roles and privileges 133

 7
Identity management
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Identity management overview
• Identity types
• Access tokens
• Access token generation
• Managing ID mappings
• Managing user identities

Identity management overview

In environments with several different types of directory services, OneFS maps the users and groups from the separate services
to provide a single unified identity on a cluster and uniform access control to files and directories, regardless of the incoming
protocol. This process is called identity mapping.
PowerScale clusters are frequently deployed in multiprotocol environments with multiple types of directory services, such as
Active Directory and LDAP. When a user with accounts in multiple directory services logs in to a cluster, OneFS combines the
user’s identities and privileges from all the directory services into a native access token.
You can configure OneFS settings to include a list of rules for access token manipulation to control user identity and privileges.
For example, you can set a user mapping rule to merge an Active Directory identity and an LDAP identity into a single token that
works for access to files stored over both SMB and NFS. The token can include groups from Active Directory and LDAP. The
mapping rules that you create can solve identity problems by manipulating access tokens in many ways, including the following
examples:
● Authenticate a user with Active Directory but give the user a UNIX identity.
● Select a primary group from competing choices in Active Directory or LDAP.
● Disallow login of users that do not exist in both Active Directory and LDAP.
For more information about identity management, see the white paper OneFS User Mapping - Mapping Identities across
Authentication Providers.

Identity types
OneFS supports three primary identity types, each of which you can store directly on the file system. Identity types are user
identifier and group identifier for UNIX, and security identifier for Windows.
When you log on to a cluster, the user mapper expands your identity to include your other identities from all the directory
services, including Active Directory, LDAP, and NIS. After OneFS maps your identities across the directory services, it generates
an access token that includes the identity information associated with your accounts. A token includes the following identifiers:
● A UNIX user identifier (UID) and a group identifier (GID). A UID or GID is a 32-bit number with a maximum value of
4,294,967,295.
● A security identifier (SID) for a Windows user account. A SID is a series of authorities and sub-authorities ending with
a 32-bit relative identifier (RID). Most SIDs have the form S-1-5-21-<A>-<B>-<C>-<RID>, where <A>, <B>, and <C> are
specific to a domain or computer and <RID> denotes the object in the domain.
● A primary group SID for a Windows group account.
● A list of supplemental identities, including all groups in which the user is a member.
The token also contains privileges that stem from administrative role-based access control.
On a PowerScale cluster, a file contains permissions, which appear as an access control list (ACL). The ACL controls access to
directories, files, and other securable system objects.

134 Identity management

When a user tries to access a file, OneFS compares the identities in the user’s access token with the file’s ACL. OneFS grants
access when the file’s ACL includes an access control entry (ACE) that allows the identity in the token to access the file and
that does not include an ACE that denies the identity access. OneFS compares the access token of a user with the ACL of a file.
NOTE: For more information about access control lists, including a description of the permissions and how they correspond
to POSIX mode bits, see OneFS: Authentication, Identity Management, and Authorization: Multi-protocol data access and
the Unified Permission Model.
When a name is provided as an identifier, it is converted into the corresponding user or group object and the correct identity
type. You can enter or display a name in various ways:
● UNIX assumes unique case-sensitive namespaces for users and groups. For example, Name and name represent different
objects.
● Windows provides a single, case-insensitive namespace for all objects and also specifies a prefix to target an Active
Directory domain; for example, domain\name.
● Kerberos and NFSv4 define principals, which require names to be formatted the same way as email addresses; for example,
[email protected].
Multiple names can reference the same object. For example, given the name support and the domain example.com, support,
EXAMPLE\support and [email protected] are all names for a single object in Active Directory.

Access tokens
An access token is created when the user first makes a request for access.
Access tokens represent who a user is when performing actions on the cluster and supply the primary owner and group
identities during file creation. Access tokens are also compared against the ACL or mode bits during authorization checks.
During user authorization, OneFS compares the access token, which is generated during the initial connection, with the
authorization data on the file. All user and identity mapping occurs during token generation; no mapping takes place during
permissions evaluation.
An access token includes all UIDs, GIDs, and SIDs for an identity, in addition to all OneFS privileges. OneFS reads the information
in the token to determine whether a user has access to a resource. It is important that the token contains the correct list of
UIDs, GIDs, and SIDs. An access token is created from one of the following sources:

Source Authentication
Username ● SMB impersonate user
● Kerberized NFSv3
● Kerberized NFSv4
● NFS export user mapping
● HTTP
● FTP
● HDFS
Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC) ● SMB NTLM
● Active Directory Kerberos
User identifier (UID) ● NFS AUTH_SYS mapping

Access token generation

For most protocols, the access token is generated from the username or from the authorization data that is retrieved during
authentication.
The following steps present a simplified overview of the complex process through which an access token is generated:

Step 1: User Using the initial identity, the user is looked up in all configured authentication providers in the access
identity lookup zone, in the order in which they are listed. The user identity and group list are retrieved from the
authenticating provider. Next, additional group memberships that are associated with the user and group
list are looked up for all other authentication providers. All of these SIDs, UIDs, or GIDs are added to the
initial token.

Identity management 135

 NOTE: An exception to this behavior occurs if the AD provider is configured to call other providers,
such as LDAP or NIS.

Step 2: ID The user's identifiers are associated across directory services. All SIDs are converted to their equivalent
mapping UID/GID and vice versa. These ID mappings are also added to the access token.
Step 3: User Access tokens from other directory services are combined. If the username matches any user mapping
mapping rules, the rules are processed in order and the token is updated accordingly.
Step 4: On- The default on-disk identity is calculated from the final token and the global setting. These identities are
disk identity used for newly created files.
calculation

ID mapping
The Identity (ID) mapping service maintains relationship information between mapped Windows and UNIX identifiers to provide
consistent access control across file sharing protocols within an access zone.
NOTE: ID mapping and user mapping are different services, despite the similarity in names.

During authentication, the authentication daemon requests identity mappings from the ID mapping service in order to create
access tokens. Upon request, the ID mapping service returns Windows identifiers mapped to UNIX identifiers or UNIX identifiers
mapped to Windows identifiers. When a user authenticates to a cluster over NFS with a UID or GID, the ID mapping service
returns the mapped Windows SID, allowing access to files that another user stored over SMB. When a user authenticates to the
cluster over SMB with a SID, the ID mapping service returns the mapped UNIX UID and GID, allowing access to files that a UNIX
client stored over NFS.
Mappings between UIDs or GIDs and SIDs are stored according to access zone in a cluster-distributed database called the ID
map. Each mapping in the ID map is stored as a one-way relationship from the source to the target identity type. Two-way
mappings are stored as complementary one-way mappings.

Mapping Windows IDs to UNIX IDs

When a Windows user authenticates with an SID, the authentication daemon searches the external Active Directory provider
to look up the user or group associated with the SID. If the user or group has only an SID in the Active Directory, the
authentication daemon requests a mapping from the ID mapping service.
NOTE: User and group lookups may be disabled or limited, depending on the Active Directory settings. You enable user and
group lookup settings through the isi auth ads modify command.

If the ID mapping service does not locate and return a mapped UID or GID in the ID map, the authentication daemon searches
other external authentication providers configured in the same access zone for a user that matches the same name as the
Active Directory user.
If a matching user name is found in another external provider, the authentication daemon adds the matching user's UID or GID
to the access token for the Active Directory user, and the ID mapping service creates a mapping between the UID or GID and
the Active Directory user's SID in the ID map. This is referred to as an external mapping.
NOTE: When an external mapping is stored in the ID map, the UID is specified as the on-disk identity for that user. When
the ID mapping service stores a generated mapping, the SID is specified as the on-disk identity.
If a matching user name is not found in another external provider, the authentication daemon assigns a UID or GID from the ID
mapping range to the Active Directory user's SID, and the ID mapping service stores the mapping in the ID map. This is referred
to as a generated mapping. The ID mapping range is a pool of UIDs and GIDs allocated in the mapping settings.
After a mapping has been created for a user, the authentication daemon retrieves the UID or GID stored in the ID map upon
subsequent lookups for the user.

Mapping UNIX IDs to Windows IDs

The ID mapping service creates temporary UID-to-SID and GID-to-SID mappings only if a mapping does not already exist. The
UNIX SIDs that result from these mappings are never stored on disk.
UIDs and GIDs have a set of predefined mappings to and from SIDs.

136 Identity management

If a UID-to-SID or GID-to-SID mapping is requested during authentication, the ID mapping service generates a temporary UNIX
SID in the format S-1-22-1-<UID> or S-1-22-2-<GID> by applying the following rules:
● For UIDs, the ID mapping service generates a UNIX SID with a domain of S-1-22-1 and a resource ID (RID) matching the UID.
For example, the UNIX SID for UID 600 is S-1-22-1-600.
● For GIDs, the ID mapping service generates a UNIX SID with a domain of S-1-22-2 and an RID matching the GID. For
example, the UNIX SID for GID 800 is S-1-22-2-800.

ID mapping ranges
In access zones with multiple external authentication providers, such as Active Directory and LDAP, it is important that the
UIDs and GIDs from different providers that are configured in the same access zone do not overlap. Overlapping UIDs and GIDs
between providers within an access zone might result in some users gaining access to other users' directories and files.
The range of UIDs and GIDs that can be allocated for generated mappings is configurable in each access zone through the isi
auth settings mappings modify command. The default range for both UIDs and GIDs is 1000000–2000000 in each
access zone.
Do not include commonly used UIDs and GIDs in your ID ranges. For example, UIDs and GIDs below 1000 are reserved for system
accounts and should not be assigned to users or groups.

User mapping
User mapping provides a way to control permissions by specifying a user's security identifiers, user identifiers, and group
identifiers. OneFS uses the identifiers to check file or group ownership.
With the user-mapping feature, you can apply rules to modify which user identity OneFS uses, add supplemental user identities,
and modify a user's group membership. The user-mapping service combines a user’s identities from different directory services
into a single access token and then modifies it according to the rules that you create.
NOTE: You can configure mapping rules on a per-zone basis. Mapping rules must be configured separately in each access
zone that uses them. OneFS maps users only during login or protocol access.

Default user mappings

Default user mappings determine access if explicit user-mapping rules are not created.
If you do not configure rules, a user who authenticates with one directory service receives the identity information in other
directory services when the account names are the same. For example, a user who authenticates with an Active Directory
domain as Desktop\jane automatically receives identities in the final access token for the corresponding UNIX user account for
jane from LDAP or NIS.
In the most common scenario, OneFS is connected to two directory services, Active Directory and LDAP. In such a case, the
default mapping provides a user with the following identity attributes:
● A UID from LDAP
● The user SID from Active Directory
● An SID from the default group in Active Directory
The user's groups come from Active Directory and LDAP, with the LDAP groups and the autogenerated group GID added to
the list. To pull groups from LDAP, the mapping service queries the memberUid attribute. The user’s home directory, gecos, and
shell come from Active Directory.

Elements of user-mapping rules

You combine operators with user names to create a user-mapping rule.
The following elements affect how the user mapper applies a rule:
● The operator, which determines the operation that a rule performs
● Fields for usernames
● Options
● A parameter
● Wildcards

Identity management 137

User-mapping best practices
Follow best practices to simplify user mapping.

Use Active Use Microsoft Active Directory with Windows Services for UNIX and RFC 2307 attributes to manage
Directory with Linux, UNIX, and Windows systems. Integrating UNIX and Linux systems with Active Directory centralizes
RFC 2307 identity management and eases interoperability, reducing the need for user-mapping rules. Make sure
and Windows your domain controllers are running Windows Server 2003 or later.
Services for
UNIX
Employ a The simplest configurations name users consistently, so that each UNIX user corresponds to a similarly
consistent named Windows user. Such a convention allows rules with wildcard characters to match names and map
username them without explicitly specifying each pair of accounts.
strategy
Do not use In networks with multiple identity sources, such as LDAP and Active Directory with RFC 2307 attributes,
overlapping ID you should ensure that UID and GID ranges do not overlap. It is also important that the range from
ranges which OneFS automatically allocates UIDs and GIDs does not overlap with any other ID range. OneFS
automatically allocates UIDs and GIDs from the range 1,000,000-2,000,000. If UIDs and GIDs overlap
multiple directory services, some users might gain access to other users’ directories and files.
Avoid common Do not include commonly used UIDs and GIDs in your ID ranges. For example, UIDs and GIDs below 1000
UIDs and GIDs are reserved for system accounts; do not assign them to users or groups.
Do not use UPNs You cannot use a user principal name (UPN) in a user mapping rule. A UPN is an Active Directory domain
in mapping rules and username that are combined into an Internet-style name with an @ symbol, such as an email address:
jane@example. If you include a UPN in a rule, the mapping service ignores it and may return an error.
Instead, specify names in the format DOMAIN\user.com.
Group rules by The system processes every mapping rule by default, which can present problems when you apply a
type and order deny-all rule—for example, to deny access to all unknown users. In addition, replacement rules might
them interact with rules that contain wildcard characters. To minimize complexity, it is recommended that you
group rules by type and organize them in the following order:
1. Replacement rules: Specify all rules that replace an identity first to ensure that OneFS replaces all
instances of the identity.
2. Join, add, and insert rules: After the names are set by any replacement operations, specify join, add,
and insert rules to add extra identifiers.
3. Allow and deny rules: Specify rules that allow or deny access last.
NOTE: Stop all processing before applying a default deny rule. To do so, create a rule that
matches allowed users but does nothing, such as an add operator with no field options, and has
the break option. After enumerating the allowed users, you can place a catchall deny at the end to
replace anybody unmatched with an empty user.
To prevent explicit rules from being skipped, in each group of rules, order explicit rules before rules that
contain wildcard characters.
Add the LDAP When a PowerScale cluster is connected to Active Directory and LDAP, add the LDAP primary group to
or NIS primary the list of supplemental groups. This enables OneFS to honor group permissions on files created over NFS
group to the or migrated from other UNIX storage systems. The same practice is advised when a PowerScale cluster is
supplemental connected to Active Directory as well as and NIS.
groups

On-disk identity
After the user mapper resolves a user's identities, OneFS determines an authoritative identifier for it, which is the preferred
on-disk identity.
OnesFS stores either UNIX or Windows identities in file metadata on disk. On-disk identity types are UNIX, SID, and native.
Identities are set when a file is created or a file's access control data is modified. Almost all protocols require some level of
mapping to operate correctly, so choosing the preferred identity to store on disk is important. You can configure OneFS to store
either the UNIX or the Windows identity, or you can allow OneFS to determine the optimal identity to store.
On-disk identity types are UNIX, SID, and native. Although you can change the type of on-disk identity, the native identity is
best for a network with UNIX and Windows systems. In native on-disk identity mode, setting the UID as the on-disk identity
improves NFS performance.

138 Identity management

 NOTE: The SID on-disk identity is for a homogeneous network of Windows systems managed only with Active Directory.
When you upgrade the on-disk identity setting is preserved. On new installations, the on-disk identity is set to native.
The native on-disk identity type allows the OneFS authentication daemon to select the correct identity to store on disk by
checking for the identity mapping types in the following order:

Order Mapping type Description

1 Algorithmic mapping An SID that matches S-1-22-1-UID or S-1-22-2-GID in the internal ID
mapping database is converted back to the corresponding UNIX identity,
and the UID and GID are set as the on-disk identity.
2 External mapping A user with an explicit UID and GID defined in a directory service (such as
Active Directory with RFC 2307 attributes, LDAP, NIS, or the OneFS file
provider or local provider) has the UNIX identity set as the on-disk identity.
3 Persistent mapping Mappings are stored persistently in the identity mapper database. An
identity with a persistent mapping in the identity mapper database uses
the destination of that mapping as the on-disk identity, which occurs
primarily with manual ID mappings. For example, if there is an ID mapping
of GID:10000 to S-1-5-32-545, a request for the on-disk storage of
GID:10000 returns S-1-5-32-545.
4 No mapping If a user lacks a UID or GID even after querying the other directory services
and identity databases, its SID is set as the on-disk identity. In addition, to
make sure a user can access files over NFS, OneFS allocates a UID and GID
from a preset range of 1,000,000 to 2,000,000. In native on-disk identity
mode, a UID or GID that OneFS generates is never set as the on-disk
identity.

NOTE: If you change the on-disk identity type, you should run the PermissionRepair job with the Convert repair type
selected to make sure that the disk representation of all files is consistent with the changed setting. For more information,
see the Run the PermissionRepair job section.

Managing ID mappings
You can create, modify, and delete identity mappings and configure ID mapping settings.

Create an identity mapping

You can create a manual identity mapping between source and target identities or automatically generate a mapping for a source
identity.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth mapping create command.
The following command specifies IDs of source and target identities in the zone3 access zone to create a two-way mapping
between the identities:

isi auth mapping create --2way --source-sid=S-1-5-21-12345 \

--target-uid=5211 --zone=zone3

Modify an identity mapping

You can modify the configuration of an identity mapping.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth mapping modify command.

Identity management 139

 The following command modifies the mapping of the user with UID 4236 in the zone3 access zone to include a reverse,
2-way mapping between the source and target identities:

isi auth mapping modify --source-uid=4236 \

--target-sid=S-1-5-21-12345 --zone=zone3 --2way

Delete an identity mapping

You can delete one or more identity mappings.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth mapping delete command.
The following command deletes all identity mappings in the zone3 access zone:

isi auth mapping delete --all --zone=zone3

The following command deletes all identity mappings in the zone3 access zone that were both created automatically and
include a UID or GID from an external authentication source:

isi auth mapping delete --all --only-external --zone=zone3

The following command deletes the identity mapping of the user with UID 4236 in the zone3 access zone:

isi auth mapping delete --source-uid=4236 --zone=zone3

View an identity mapping

You can display mapping information for a specific identity.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth mapping view command.
The following command displays mappings for the user with UID 4236 in the zone3 access zone:

isi auth mapping view --uid=4236 --zone=zone3

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name: user_36
On-disk: UID: 4236
Unix uid: 4236
Unix gid: -100000
SMB: S-1-22-1-4236

Flush the identity mapping cache

You can flush the ID map cache to remove in-memory copies of all or specific identity mappings.
Modifications to ID mappings may cause the cache to become out of sync and users might experience slowness or stalls when
authenticating. You can flush the cache to synchronize the mappings.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth mapping flush command.
The following command flushes all identity mappings on the cluster:

isi auth mapping flush --all

140 Identity management

 The following command flushes the mapping of the user with UID 4236 in the zone3 access zone:

isi auth mapping flush --source-uid-4236 --zone=zone3

View a user token

You can view the contents of an access token generated for a user during authentication.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth mapping token command.
The following command displays the access token of a user with UID 4236 in the zone3 access zone:

isi auth mapping token --uid=4236 --zone=zone3

The system displays output similar to the following example:

User
Name: user_36
UID: 4236
SID: S-1-22-1-4236
On Disk: 4236
ZID: 3
Zone: zone3
Privileges: -
Primary Group
Name: user_36
GID: 4236
SID: S-1-22-2-4236
On Disk: 4236

Configure identity mapping settings

You can enable or disable automatic allocation of UIDs and GIDS and customize the range of ID values in each access zone. The
default range is 1000000–2000000.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth settings mapping modify command.
The following command enables automatic allocation of both UIDs and GIDs in the zone3 access zone and sets their
allocation ranges to 25000–50000:

isi auth settings mapping modify --gid-range-enabled=yes \

--gid-range-min=25000 --gid-range-max=50000 --uid-range-enabled=yes \
--uid-range-min=25000 --uid-range-max=50000 --zone=zone3

View identity mapping settings

You can view the current configuration of identity mapping settings in each zone.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi auth settings mapping view command.
The following command displays the current settings in the zone3 access zone:

isi auth settings mapping view --zone=zone3

The system displays output similar to the following example:

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 GID Range Enabled: Yes
GID Range Min: 25000
GID Range Max: 50000
UID Range Enabled: Yes
UID Range Min: 25000
UID Range Max: 50000

Managing user identities

You can manage user identities by creating user-mapping rules.
When you create user-mapping rules, it is important to remember the following information:
● You can only create user-mapping rules if you are connected to the cluster through the System zone; however, you can
apply user-mapping rules to specific access zones. If you create a user-mapping rule for a specific access zone, the rule
applies only in the context of its zone.
● When you change user-mapping on one node, OneFS propagates the change to the other nodes.
● After you make a user-mapping change, the OneFS authentication service reloads the configuration.

View user identity

You can view the identities and group membership that a specified user has within the Active Directory and LDAP directory
services, including the user's security identifier (SID) history.
This procedure must be performed through the command-line interface (CLI).
NOTE: The OneFS user access token contains a combination of identities from Active Directory and LDAP if both directory
services are configured. You can run the following commands to discover the identities that are within each specific
directory service.
1. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
2. View a user identity from Active Directory only by running the isi auth users view command.
The following command displays the identity of a user named stand in the Active Directory domain named YORK:

isi auth users view --user=YORK\\stand --show-groups

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name: YORK\stand
DN: CN=stand,CN=Users,DC=york,DC=hull,DC=example,DC=com
DNS Domain: york.hull.example.com
Domain: YORK
Provider: lsa-activedirectory-provider:YORK.HULL.EXAMPLE.COM
Sam Account Name: stand
UID: 4326
SID: S-1-5-21-1195855716-1269722693-1240286574-591111
Primary Group
ID : GID:1000000
Name : YORK\york_sh_udg
Additional Groups: YORK\sd-york space group
YORK\york_sh_udg
YORK\sd-york-group
YORK\sd-group
YORK\domain users

3. View a user identity from LDAP only by running the isi auth users view command.
The following command displays the identity of an LDAP user named stand:

isi auth user view --user=stand --show-groups

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name: stand
DN: uid=stand,ou=People,dc=colorado4,dc=hull,dc=example,dc=com

142 Identity management

 DNS Domain: -
Domain: LDAP_USERS
Provider: lsa-ldap-provider:Unix LDAP
Sam Account Name: stand
UID: 4326
SID: S-1-22-1-4326
Primary Group
ID : GID:7222
Name : stand
Additional Groups: stand
sd-group
sd-group2

Create a user-mapping rule

You can create a user-mapping rule to manage user identities.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > User Mapping.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone that contains the rules you want to manage, and then click Edit
User Mapping Rules.
The Edit User Mapping Rules dialog box appears.
3. Click Create a User Mapping Rule.
The Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box appears.
4. From the Operation list, select an operation.
Depending on your selection, the Create a User Mapping Rule displays additional fields.
5. Fill in the fields as needed.
6. Click Add Rule to save the rule and return to the Edit User Mapping Rules dialog box.
7. In the User Mapping Rules area, click the title bar of a rule and drag it to a new position to change the position of a rule in
the list.
Rules are applied in the order they are listed. To ensure that each rule gets processed, list replacement rules first and list
allow or deny rules at the end.
8. If the access token is not associated with a default UNIX user or if the default UNIX user does not have a primary UID or
GID, select one of the following options for authentication:
● Generate a primary UID or GID from the reserved range of UIDs and GIDs
● Deny access to the user
● Assign another user as the default UNIX user
NOTE: It is recommended that you assign a user from the well-known account that has a read-only access.
9. Click Save Changes.

Related references
Mapping rule options
Mapping rule operators

Related tasks
Merge Windows and UNIX tokens
Retrieve the primary group from LDAP
Test a user-mapping rule

Test a user-mapping rule

After creating a user-mapping rule, you can test it to ensure that the results for a user token are as expected.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > User Mapping.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select an access zone that contains the rules that you want to test.
3. In the Test User Mapping area, in the User, Group, or Well-known SID field, type a user or group name or the value for a
SID, or click Browse to make a selection.
4. Click Test Mapping.

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 The token results appear in the Results section as shown:

User
Name:krb_user_002
UID:1002
SID:S-1-22-1-1001
On disk:1001
ZID:1
Zone:System

Privileges:-

Primary Group
Name:krb_user_001
GID:1000
SID:S-1-22-2-1001
On disk:1000

Supplemental Identities
Name:Authenticated Users
GID: -
SID:S-1-5-11

Related tasks
Create a user-mapping rule

Merge Windows and UNIX tokens

You can use either the join or append operator to merge tokens from different directory services into a single OneFS user token.
When Windows and Unix user names do not match across directory services, you can write user-mapping rules that use either
the join or the append operator to merge two user names into a single token. For example, if a user's Windows username is
win_bob and the users Unix username is UNIX_bob, you can join or append the user tokens of the two different users.
When you append an account to another account, the append operator adds information from one identity to another: OneFS
appends the fields that the options specify from the source identity to the target identity. OneFS appends the identifiers to the
additional group list.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > User Mapping.
2. Select the Current Access Zone that contains the rules you want to manage, and then click Edit User Mapping Rules.
The Edit User Mapping Rules dialog box appears.
3. Click Create a User Mapping Rule.
The Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box appears.
4. From the Operation list, select an option:

Option Description
Join two users together Inserts the new identity into the token.
Append field from a user Modifies the access token by adding fields to it.

Depending on your selection, the Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box refreshes to display additional fields.
5. Populate the fields as needed.
6. Click Add Rule.
NOTE: Rules are called in the order they are listed. To ensure that each rule gets processed, list replacements first and
allow/deny rules last. You can change the order in which a rule is listed by clicking its title bar and dragging it to a new
position.

7. Click Save Changes.

Related tasks
Test a user-mapping rule

144 Identity management

Retrieve the primary group from LDAP
You can create a user-mapping rule to insert primary group information from LDAP into a user's access token.
By default, the user-mapping service combines information from AD and LDAP but gives precedence to the information from
AD. You can create a mapping rule to control how OneFS combines the information, giving precedence to a primary group from
LDAP rather than from Active Directory for a user.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > User Mapping.
2. Select the Current Access Zone that contains the rules you want to manage, and then click Edit User Mapping Rules.
The Edit User Mapping Rules dialog box appears.
3. Click Create a User Mapping Rule.
The Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box appears.
4. From the Operation list, select Insert fields from a user.
The Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box refreshes to display additional fields.
5. To populate the Insert Fields into this User field, perform the following steps:
a. Click Browse.
The Select a User dialog box appears.
b. Select a user and an Active Directory authentication provider.
c. Click Search to view the search results.
d. Select a username and click Select to return to the Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box.
The primary group of the second user is inserted as the primary group of the first user.
6. Select the Insert primary group SID and GID check box.
7. To populate the Insert Fields from this User field, perform the following steps:
a. Click Browse.
The Select a User dialog box appears.
b. Select a user and an LDAP authentication provider.
c. Click Search to view the search results.
d. Select a username and click Select to return to the Create a User Mapping Rule dialog box.
8. Click Add Rule.
NOTE: Rules are called in the order they are listed. To ensure that each rule gets processed, list the replacements first
and the allow or deny rules at the end. You can change the order in which a rule is listed by clicking its title bar and
dragging it to a new position.

9. Click Save Changes.

Related tasks
Test a user-mapping rule

Mapping rule options

Mapping rules can contain options that target the fields of an access token.
A field represents an aspect of a cross-domain access token, such as the primary UID and primary user SID from a user that you
select. You can see some of the fields in the OneFS web administration interface. User in the web administration interface is the
same as username. You can also see fields in an access token by running the command isi auth mapping token.
When you create a rule, you can add an option to manipulate how OneFS combines aspects of two identities into a single token.
For example, an option can force OneFS to append the supplement groups to a token.
A token includes the following fields that you can manipulate with user mapping rules:
● username
● unix_name
● primary_uid
● primary_user_sid
● primary_gid
● primary_group_sid
● additional_ids (includes supplemental groups)

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Options control how a rule combines identity information in a token. The break option is the exception: It stops OneFS from
processing additional rules.
Although several options can apply to a rule, not all options apply to all operators. The following table describes the effect of
each option and the operators that they work with.

Option Operator Description

user insert, append Copies the primary UID and primary user SID, if they exist, to
the token.
groups insert, append Copies the primary GID and primary group SID, if they exist, to
the token.
groups insert, append Copies all the additional identifiers to the token. The additional
identifiers exclude the primary UID, the primary GID, the
primary user SID, and the primary group SID.
default_user all operators except remove If the mapping service fails to find the second user in a rule,
groups the service tries to find the username of the default user.
The name of the default user cannot include wildcards. When
you set the option for the default user in a rule with the
command-line interface, you must set it with an underscore:
default_user.
break all operators Stops the mapping service from applying rules that follow
the insertion point of the break option. The mapping service
generates the final token at the point of the break.

Related tasks
Create a user-mapping rule

Mapping rule operators

The operator determines what a mapping rule does.
You can create user-mapping rules through either the web-administration interface, where the operators are spelled out in a list,
or from the command-line interface.
When you create a mapping rule with the OneFS command-line interface (CLI), you must specify an operator with a symbol. The
operator affects the direction in which the mapping service processes a rule. For more information about creating a mapping
rule, see the white paper Managing identities with the PowerScale OneFS user mapping service. The following table describes
the operators that you can use in a mapping rule.
A mapping rule can contain only one operator.

Operator Web interface CLI Direction Description

append Append fields from a ++ Left-to-right Modifies an access token by adding
user fields to it. The mapping service appends
the fields that are specified in the list of
options (user, group, groups) to the first
identity in the rule. The fields are copied
from the second identity in the rule. All
appended identifiers become members
of the additional groups list. An append
rule without an option performs only a
lookup operation; you must include an
option to alter a token.
insert Insert fields from a user += Left-to-right Modifies an existing access token by
adding fields to it. Fields specified in
the options list (user, group, groups)
are copied from the new identity
and inserted into the identity in the
token. When the rule inserts a primary

146 Identity management

Operator Web interface CLI Direction Description
user or primary group, it become the
new primary user and primary group
in the token. The previous primary
user and primary group move to
the additional identifiers list. Modifying
the primary user leaves the token’s
username unchanged. When inserting
the additional groups from an identity,
the service adds the new groups to the
existing groups.
replace Replace one user with a => Left-to-right Removes the token and replaces it with
different user the new token that is identified by
the second username. If the second
username is empty, the mapping service
removes the first username in the token,
leaving no username. If a token contains
no username, OneFS denies access with
a no such user error.

remove Remove supplemental -- Unary Modifies a token by removing the

groups groups from a user supplemental groups.
join Join two users together &= Bidirectional Inserts the new identity into the token.
If the new identity is the second user,
the mapping service inserts it after
the existing identity; otherwise, the
service inserts it before the existing
identity. The location of the insertion
point is relevant when the existing
identity is already the first in the list
because OneFS uses the first identity
to determine the ownership of new file
system objects.

Related tasks
Create a user-mapping rule

Identity management 147

 8
Home directories
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Home directories overview
• Home directory permissions
• Authenticating SMB users
• Home directory creation through SMB
• Home directory creation through SSH and FTP
• Home directory creation in a mixed environment
• Interactions between ACLs and mode bits
• Default home directory settings in authentication providers
• Supported expansion variables
• Domain variables in home directory provisioning

Home directories overview

When you create a local user, OneFS automatically creates a home directory for the user. OneFS also supports dynamic home
directory provisioning for users who access the cluster by connecting to an SMB share or by logging in through FTP or SSH.
Regardless of the method by which a home directory was created, you can configure access to the home directory through a
combination of SMB, SSH, and FTP.

Home directory permissions

You can set up a user's home directory with a Windows ACL or with POSIX mode bits, which are then converted into a synthetic
ACL. The method by which a home directory is created determines the initial permissions that are set on the home directory.
When you create a local user, the user's home directory is created with mode bits by default.
For users who authenticate against external sources, you can specify settings to create home directories dynamically at login
time. If a home directory is created during a login through SSH or FTP, it is set up with mode bits; if a home directory is created
during an SMB connection, it receives either mode bits or an ACL. For example, if an LDAP user first logs in through SSH or
FTP, the user's home directory is created with mode bits. If the same user first connects through an SMB share, the home
directory is created with the permissions indicated by the configured SMB settings. If the --inheritable-path-acl option
is enabled, an ACL is generated; otherwise, mode bits are used.

Authenticating SMB users

You can authenticate SMB users from authentication providers that can handle NT hashes.
SMB sends an NT password hash to authenticate SMB users, so only users from authentication providers that can handle NT
hashes can log in over SMB. The following OneFS-supported authentication providers can handle NT hashes:
● Active Directory
● Local
● LDAPSAM (LDAP with Samba extensions enabled)

148 Home directories

Home directory creation through SMB
You can create SMB shares by including expansion variables in the share path. Expansion variables give users to access their
home directories by connecting to the share. You can also enable dynamic provisioning of home directories that do not exist at
SMB connection time.
NOTE: Share permissions are checked when files are accessed, before the underlying file system permissions are checked.
Either of these permissions can prevent access to the file or directory.

Create home directories with expansion variables

You can configure settings with expansion variables to create SMB share home directories.
When users access the cluster over SMB, home directory access is through SMB shares. You can configure settings with a path
that uses a variable expansion syntax, allowing a user to connect to their home directory share.
NOTE: Home directory share paths must be in the root path of the access zone in which the home directory SMB share is
created.
In the following commands, the --allow-variable-expansion option is enabled to indicate that %U should be expanded
to the user name, which is user411 in this example. The --auto-create-directory option is enabled to create the directory
if it does not exist:

isi smb shares create HOMEDIR --path=/ifs/home/%U \

--allow-variable-expansion=yes --auto-create-directory=yes
isi smb shares permission modify HOMEDIR --wellknown Everyone \
--permission-type allow --permission full
isi smb shares view HOMEDIR

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Share Name: HOMEDIR

Path: /ifs/home/%U
Description:
Client-side Caching Policy: manual
Automatically expand user names or domain names: True
Automatically create home directories for users: True
Browsable: True
Permissions:
Account Account Type Run as Root Permission Type Permission
------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone wellknown False allow full
------------------------------------------------------------
Total: 1
...

When user411 connects to the share with the net use command, the user's home directory is created at /ifs/home/
user411. On user411's Windows client, the net use m: command connects /ifs/home/user411 through the HOMEDIR
share:

net use m: \\cluster.company.com\HOMEDIR /u:user411

1. Run the following commands on the cluster with the --allow-variable-expansion option enabled. The %U expansion
variable expands to the user name, and the --auto-create-directory option is enabled to create the directory if it
does not exist:

isi smb shares create HOMEDIR --path=/ifs/home/%U \

--allow-variable-expansion=yes --auto-create-directory=yes
isi smb shares permission modify HOMEDIR --wellknown Everyone \
--permission-type allow --permission full

2. Run the following command to view the home directory settings:

isi smb shares view HOMEDIR

Home directories 149

 The system displays output similar to the following example:

Share Name: HOMEDIR

Path: /ifs/home/%U
Description:
Client-side Caching Policy: manual
Automatically expand user names or domain names: True
Automatically create home directories for users: True
Browsable: True
Permissions:
Account Account Type Run as Root Permission Type Permission
------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone wellknown False allow full
------------------------------------------------------------
Total: 1
...

If user411 connects to the share with the net use command, user411's home directory is created at /ifs/home/
user411. On user411's Windows client, the net use m: command connects /ifs/home/user411 through the
HOMEDIR share, mapping the connection similar to the following example:

net use m: \\cluster.company.com\HOMEDIR /u:user411

Create home directories with the --inheritable-path-acl option

You can enable the --inheritable-path-acl option on a share to specify that it is to be inherited on the share path if the
parent directory has an inheritable ACL.
To perform most configuration tasks, you must log on as a member of the SecurityAdmin role.
By default, an SMB share's directory path is created with a synthetic ACL based on mode bits. You can enable the --
inheritable-path-acl option to use the inheritable ACL on all directories that are created, either at share creation time or
for those dynamically provisioned when connecting to that share.
1. Run commands similar to the following examples to enable the --inheritable-path-acl option on the cluster to
dynamically provision a user home directory at first connection to a share on the cluster:

isi smb shares create HOMEDIR_ACL --path=/ifs/home/%U \

--allow-variable-expansion=yes --auto-create-directory=yes \
--inheritable-path-acl=yes

isi smb shares permission modify HOMEDIR_ACL \

--wellknown Everyone \
--permission-type allow --permission full

2. Run a net use command, similar to the following example, on a Windows client to map the home directory for user411:

net use q: \\cluster.company.com\HOMEDIR_ACL /u:user411

3. Run a command similar to the following example on the cluster to view the inherited ACL permissions for the user411 share:

cd /ifs/home/user411
ls -lde .

The system displays output similar to the following example:

drwx------ + 2 user411 PowerScale Users 0 Oct 19 16:23 ./

OWNER: user:user411
GROUP: group:PowerScale Users
CONTROL:dacl_auto_inherited,dacl_protected
0: user:user411 allow dir_gen_all,object_inherit,container_inherit

150 Home directories

Create special home directories with the SMB share %U variable
The special SMB share name %U enables you to create a home-directory SMB share that appears the same as a user's user
name.
You typically set up a %U SMB share with a share path that includes the %U expansion variable. If a user attempts to connect
to a share matching the login name and it does not exist, the user connects to the %U share instead and is directed to the
expanded path for the %U share.
NOTE: If another SMB share exists that matches the user's name, the user connects to the explicitly named share rather
than to the %U share.
Run the following command to create a share that matches the authenticated user login name when the user connects to the
share:

isi smb share create %U /ifs/home/%U \

--allow-variable-expansion=yes --auto-create-directory=yes \
--zone=System

After running this command, user Zachary will see a share named 'zachary' rather than '%U', and when Zachary tries to connect
to the share named 'zachary', he will be directed to /ifs/home/zachary. On a Windows client, if Zachary runs the following
commands, he sees the contents of his /ifs/home/zachary directory:

net use m: \\cluster.ip\zachary /u:zachary

cd m:
dir

Similarly, if user Claudia runs the following commands on a Windows client, she sees the directory contents of /ifs/home/
claudia:

net use m: \\cluster.ip\claudia /u:claudia

cd m:
dir

Zachary and Claudia cannot access one another's home directory because only the share 'zachary' exists for Zachary and only
the share 'claudia' exists for Claudia.

Home directory creation through SSH and FTP

You can configure home directory support for users who access the cluster through SSH or FTP by modifying authentication
provider settings.

Set the SSH or FTP login shell

You can use the --login-shell option to set the default login shell for the user.
By default, the --login-shell option, if specified, overrides any login-shell information provided by the authentication
provider, except with Active Directory. If the --login-shell option is specified with Active Directory, it simply represents
the default login shell if the Active Directory server does not provide login-shell information.

NOTE: The following examples refer to setting the login shell to /bin/bash. You can also set the shell to /bin/rbash.

1. Run the following command to set the login shell for all local users to /bin/bash:

isi auth local modify System --login-shell /bin/bash

2. Run the following command to set the default login shell for all Active Directory users in your domain to /bin/bash:

isi auth ads modify YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME.COM --login-shell /bin/bash

Home directories 151

Set SSH/FTP home directory permissions
You can specify home directory permissions for a home directory that is accessed through SSH or FTP by setting a umask value.
To perform most configuration tasks, you must log on as a member of the SecurityAdmin role.
When a user's home directory is created at login through SSH or FTP, it is created using POSIX mode bits. The permissions
setting on a user's home directory is set to 0755, then masked according to the umask setting of the user's access zone
to further limit permissions. You can modify the umask setting for a zone with the --home-directory-umask option,
specifying an octal number as the umask value.
1. Run the following command to view umask setting:

isi zone zones view System

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name: System
Path: /ifs
Groupnet: groupnet0
Map Untrusted: -
Auth Providers: lsa-local-provider:System, lsa-file-provider:System

NetBIOS Name: -
User Mapping Rules: -
Home Directory Umask: 0077
Skeleton Directory: /usr/share/skel
Cache Entry Expiry: 4H
Negative Cache Entry Expiry: 1m
Zone ID: 1

In the command result, you can see the default setting for Home Directory Umask for the created home directory is
0700, which is equivalent to (0755 & ~(077)). You can modify the Home Directory Umask setting for a zone with the
--home-directory-umask option, specifying an octal number as the umask value. This value indicates the permissions
that are to be disabled, so larger mask values indicate fewer permissions. For example, a umask value of 000 or 022 yields
created home directory permissions of 0755, whereas a umask value of 077 yields created home directory permissions of
0700.
2. Run a command similar to the following example to allow a group/others write/execute permission in a home directory:

isi zone zones modify System --home-directory-umask=022

In this example, user home directories will be created with mode bits 0755 masked by the umask field, set to the value of
022. Therefore, user home directories will be created with mode bits 0755, which is equivalent to (0755 & ~(022)).

Set SSH/FTP home directory creation options

You can configure home directory support for a user who accesses the cluster through SSH or FTP by specifying authentication
provider options.
1. Run the following command to view settings for an Active Directory authentication provider on the cluster:

isi auth ads list

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name Authentication Status DC Name Site

---------------------------------------------------------
YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME.COM Yes online - SEA
---------------------------------------------------------
Total: 1

152 Home directories

2. Run the isi auth ads modify command with the --home-directory-template and --create-home-
directory options.

isi auth ads modify YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME.COM \

--home-directory-template=/ifs/home/ADS/%D/%U \
--create-home-directory=yes

3. Run the isi auth ads view command with the --verbose option.
The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name: YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME.COM
NetBIOS Domain: YOUR
...
Create Home Directory: Yes
Home Directory Template: /ifs/home/ADS/%D/%U
Login Shell: /bin/sh

4. Run the id command.

The system displays output similar to the following example:

uid=1000008(<your-domain>\user_100) gid=1000000(<your-domain>\domain users)

groups=1000000(<your-domain>\domain users),1000024(<your-domain>\c1t),1545(Users)

5. Optional: To verify this information from an external UNIX node, run the ssh command from an external UNIX node.
For example, the following command would create /ifs/home/ADS/<your-domain>/user_100 if it did not previously
exist:

ssh <your-domain>\\[email protected]

Provision home directories with dot files

You can provision home directories with dot files.
To perform most configuration tasks, you must log on as a member of the SecurityAdmin role.
The skeleton directory, which is located at /usr/share/skel by default, contains a set of files that are copied to the user's
home directory when a local user is created or when a user home directory is dynamically created during login. Files in the
skeleton directory that begin with dot. are renamed to remove the dot prefix when they are copied to the user's home
directory. For example, dot.cshrc is copied to the user's home directory as .cshrc. This format enables dot files in the
skeleton directory to be viewable through the command-line interface without requiring the ls -a command.
For SMB shares that might use home directories that were provisioned with dot files, you can set an option to prevent users
who connect to the share through SMB from viewing the dot files.
1. Run the following command to display the default skeleton directory in the System access zone:

isi zone zones view System

The system displays output similar to the following example:

Name: System
...
Skeleton Directory: /usr/share/skel

2. Run the isi zone zones modify command to modify the default skeleton directory.
The following command modifies the default skeleton directory, /usr/share/skel, in an access zone, where System is
the value for the <zone> option and /usr/share/skel2 is the value for the <path> option:

isi zone zones modify System --skeleton-directory=/usr/share/skel2

Home directories 153

Home directory creation in a mixed environment
If a user logs in through both SMB and SSH, it is recommended that you configure home directory settings so the path template
is the same for the SMB share and each authentication provider against which the user is authenticating through SSH.

Interactions between ACLs and mode bits

Home directory setup is determined by several factors, including how users authenticate and the options that specify home
directory creation.
A user's home directory may be set up with either ACLs or POSIX mode bits, which are converted into a synthetic ACL. The
directory of a local user is created when the local user is created, and the directory is set up with POSIX mode bits by default.
Directories can be dynamically provisioned at log in for users who authenticate against external sources, and in some cases for
users who authenticate against the File provider. In this situation, the user home directory is created according to how the user
first logs in.
For example, if an LDAP user first logs in through SSH or FTP and the user home directory is created, it is created with POSIX
mode bits. If that same user first connects through an SMB home directory share, the home directory is created as specified by
the SMB option settings. If the --inherited-path-acl option is enabled, ACLs are generated. Otherwise, POSIX mode bits
are used.

Default home directory settings in authentication

providers
The default settings that affect how home directories are set up differ, based on the authentication provider that the user
authenticates against.

Authentication provider Home directory Home directory creation UNIX login shell
Local ● --home-directory- Enabled /bin/sh
template=/ifs/
home/%U
● --create-home-
directory=yes
● --login-
shell=/bin/sh

File ● --home-directory- Disabled None

template=""
● --create-home-
directory=no

Active Directory ● --home-directory- Disabled /bin/sh

template=/ifs/
home/%D/%U
● --create-home-
directory=no
● --login-
shell=/bin/sh
NOTE: If available,
provider information
overrides this value.

LDAP ● --home-directory- Disabled None

template=""
● --create-home-
directory=no

154 Home directories

Authentication provider Home directory Home directory creation UNIX login shell
NIS ● --home-directory- Disabled None
template=""
● --create-home-
directory=no

Related references
Supported expansion variables

Supported expansion variables

You can include expansion variables in an SMB share path or in an authentication provider's home directory template.
OneFS supports the following expansion variables. You can improve performance and reduce the number of shares to be
managed when you configure shares with expansion variables. For example, you can include the %U variable for a share rather
than create a share for each user. When a %U is included in the name so that each user's path is different, security is still
ensured because each user can view and access only his or her home directory.
NOTE: When you create an SMB share through the web administration interface, you must select the Allow Variable
Expansion check box or the string is interpreted literally by the system.

Variable Value Description

%U User name (for example, Expands to the user name to allow different users to use
user_001) different home directories. This variable is typically included at
the end of the path. For example, for a user named user1, the
path /ifs/home/%U is mapped to /ifs/home/user1.

%D NetBIOS domain name Expands to the user's domain name, based on the
(for example, YORK for authentication provider:
YORK.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM) ● For Active Directory users, %D expands to the Active
Directory NetBIOS name.
● For local users, %D expands to the cluster name in
uppercase characters. For example, for a cluster named
cluster1, %D expands to CLUSTER1.
● For users in the System file provider, %D expands to
UNIX_USERS.
● For users in other file providers, %D expands to
FILE_USERS.
● For LDAP users, %D expands to LDAP_USERS.
● For NIS users, %D expands to NIS_USERS.
%Z Zone name (for example, Expands to the access zone name. If multiple zones are
ZoneABC) activated, this variable is useful for differentiating users in
separate zones. For example, for a user named user1 in
the System zone, the path /ifs/home/%Z/%U is mapped
to /ifs/home/System/user1.

%L Host name (cluster host name Expands to the host name of the cluster, normalized to
in lowercase) lowercase. Limited use.
%0 First character of the user Expands to the first character of the user name.
name
%1 Second character of the user Expands to the second character of the user name.
name
%2 Third character of the user Expands to the third character of the user name.
name

NOTE: If the user name includes fewer than three characters, the %0, %1, and %2 variables wrap around. For example, for
a user named ab, the variables maps to a, b, and a, respectively. For a user named a, all three variables map to a.

Home directories 155

Domain variables in home directory provisioning
You can use domain variables to specify authentication providers when provisioning home directories.
The domain variable (%D) is typically used for Active Directory users, but it has a value set that can be used for other
authentication providers. %D expands as described in the following table for the various authentication providers.

Authenticated user %D expansion

Active Directory user Active Directory NetBIOS name—for example, YORK for provider YORK.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM.
Local user The cluster name in all-uppercase characters—for example, if the cluster is named MyCluster,
%D expands to MYCLUSTER.
File user ● UNIX_USERS (for System file provider)
● FILE_USERS (for all other file providers)
LDAP user LDAP_USERS (for all LDAP authentication providers)
NIS user NIS_USERS (for all NIS authentication providers)

Related references
Supported expansion variables

156 Home directories

 9
Data access control
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Data access control overview
• ACLs
• UNIX permissions
• Mixed-permission environments
• Managing access permissions

Data access control overview

OneFS supports two types of permissions data on files and directories that control who has access: Windows-style access
control lists (ACLs) and POSIX mode bits (UNIX permissions). You can configure global policy settings that enable you to
customize default ACL and UNIX permissions to best support your environment.
The OneFS file system installs with UNIX permissions as the default. You can give a file or directory an ACL by using Windows
Explorer or OneFS administrative tools. Typically, files created over SMB or in a directory that has an ACL, receive an ACL. If a
file receives an ACL, OneFS stops enforcing the file's mode bits; the mode bits are provided for only protocol compatibility, not
for access control.
OneFS supports multiprotocol data access over Network File System (NFS) and Server Message Block (SMB) with a unified
security model. A user is granted or denied the same access to a file when using SMB for Windows file sharing as when using
NFS for UNIX file sharing.
NFS enables Linux and UNIX clients to remotely mount any subdirectory, including subdirectories created by Windows or SMB
users. Linux and UNIX clients also can mount ACL-protected subdirectories created by a OneFS administrator. SMB provides
Windows users access to files, directories and other file system resources stored by UNIX and Linux systems. In addition to
Windows users, ACLs can affect local, NIS, and LDAP users.
By default, OneFS maintains the same file permissions regardless of the client’s operating system, the user’s identity
management system, or the file sharing protocol. When OneFS must transform a file’s permissions from ACLs to mode bits
or vice versa, it merges the permissions into an optimal representation that uniquely balances user expectations and file security.

ACLs
In Windows environments, file and directory permissions, referred to as access rights, are defined in access control lists (ACLs).
Although ACLs are more complex than mode bits, ACLs can express much more granular sets of access rules. OneFS checks the
ACL processing rules commonly associated with Windows ACLs.
A Windows ACL contains zero or more access control entries (ACEs), each of which represents the security identifier (SID) of
a user or a group as a trustee. In OneFS, an ACL can contain ACEs with a UID, GID, or SID as the trustee. Each ACE contains
a set of rights that allow or deny access to a file or folder. An ACE can optionally contain an inheritance flag to specify whether
the ACE should be inherited by child folders and files.
NOTE: Instead of the standard three permissions available for mode bits, ACLs have 32 bits of fine-grained access rights.
Of these, the upper 16 bits are general and apply to all object types. The lower 16 bits vary between files and directories but
are defined in a way that allows most applications to apply the same bits for files and directories.
Rights grant or deny access for a given trustee. You can block user access explicitly through a deny ACE or implicitly by
ensuring that a user does not directly, or indirectly through a group, appear in an ACE that grants the right.

Data access control 157

UNIX permissions
In a UNIX environment, file and directory access is controlled by POSIX mode bits, which grant read, write, or execute
permissions to the owning user, the owning group, and everyone else.
OneFS supports the standard UNIX tools for viewing and changing permissions, ls, chmod, and chown. For more information,
run the man ls, man chmod, and man chown commands.
All files contain 16 permission bits, which provide information about the file or directory type and the permissions. The lower 9
bits are grouped as three 3-bit sets, called triples, which contain the read, write, and execute (rwx) permissions for each class
of users—owner, group, and other. You can set permissions flags to grant permissions to each of these classes.
Unless the user is root, OneFS checks the class to determine whether to grant or deny access to the file. The classes are not
cumulative: The first class matched is applied. It is therefore common to grant permissions in decreasing order.

Mixed-permission environments
When a file operation requests an object’s authorization data, for example, with the ls -l command over NFS or with the
Security tab of the Properties dialog box in Windows Explorer over SMB, OneFS attempts to provide that data in the
requested format. In an environment that mixes UNIX and Windows systems, some translation may be required when performing
create file, set security, get security, or access operations.

NFS access of Windows-created files

If a file contains an owning user or group that is a SID, the system attempts to map it to a corresponding UID or GID before
returning it to the caller.
In UNIX, authorization data is retrieved by calling stat(2) on a file and examining the owner, group, and mode bits. Over
NFSv3, the GETATTR command functions similarly. The system approximates the mode bits and sets them on the file whenever
its ACL changes. Mode bit approximations need to be retrieved only to service these calls.
NOTE:

SID-to-UID and SID-to-GID mappings are cached in both the OneFS ID mapper and the stat cache. If a mapping has
recently changed, the file might report inaccurate information until the file is updated or the cache is flushed.

SMB access of UNIX-created files

No UID-to-SID or GID-to-SID mappings are performed when creating an ACL for a file; all UIDs and GIDs are converted to SIDs
or principals when the ACL is returned.
OneFS initiates a two-step process for returning a security descriptor, which contains SIDs for the owner and primary group of
an object:
1. The current security descriptor is retrieved from the file. If the file does not have a discretionary access control list (DACL),
a synthetic ACL is constructed from the file’s lower 9 mode bits, which are separated into three sets of permission triples—
one each for owner, group, and everyone. For details about mode bits, see the UNIX permissions topic.
2. Two access control entries (ACEs) are created for each triple: the allow ACE contains the corresponding rights that are
granted according to the permissions; the deny ACE contains the corresponding rights that are denied. In both cases, the
trustee of the ACE corresponds to the file owner, group, or everyone. After all of the ACEs are generated, any that are not
needed are removed before the synthetic ACL is returned.

158 Data access control

Managing access permissions
The internal representation of identities and permissions can contain information from UNIX sources, Windows sources, or
both. Because access protocols can process the information from only one of these sources, the system may need to make
approximations to present the information in a format the protocol can process.

View expected user permissions

You can view the expected permissions for user access to a file or directory.
This procedure must be performed through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
2. View expected user permissions by running the isi auth access command.
The following command displays permissions in /ifs/ for the user that you specify in place of <username>:

isi auth access <username> /ifs/

The system displays output similar to the following example:

User
Name : <username>
UID : 2018
SID : SID:S-1-5-21-2141457107-1514332578-1691322784-1018
File
Owner : user:root
Group : group:wheel
Mode : drwxrwxrwx
Relevant Mode : d---rwx---
Permissions
Expected : user:<username> \
allow dir_gen_read,dir_gen_write,dir_gen_execute,delete_child

3. View mode-bits permissions for a user by running the isi auth access command.
The following command displays verbose-mode file permissions information in /ifs/ for the user that you specify in place
of <username>:

isi auth access <username> /ifs/ -v

The system displays output similar to the following example:

User Name : <username> UID \

: 2018 SID : SID:S-1-5-21-2141457107-1514332578-1691322784-1018
File Owner : user:root Group : group:wheel Mode : drwxrwxrwx
Relevant Mode : d---rwx--- Permissions Expected : user:<username>
allow dir_gen_read,dir_gen_write,dir_gen_execute,delete_child

4. View expected ACL user permissions on a file for a user by running the isi auth access command.
The following command displays verbose-mode ACL file permissions for the file file_with_acl.tx in /ifs/data/ for
the user that you specify in place of <username>:

isi auth access <username> /ifs/data/file_with_acl.tx -v

The system displays output similar to the following example:

User Name : <username> \

UID : 2097 SID : SID:S-1-7-21-2141457107-1614332578-1691322789-1018
File Owner : user:<username> Group : group:wheel
Permissions Expected : user:<username>
allow file_gen_read,file_gen_write,std_write_dac
Relevant Acl: group:<group-name> Users allow file_gen_read
user:<username> allow std_write_dac,file_write,

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 append,file_write_ext_attr,file_write_attr
group:wheel allow file_gen_read,file_gen_write

Configure access management settings

Default access settings include whether to send NTLMv2 responses for SMB connections, the identity type to store on disk,
the Windows workgroup name for running in local mode, and character substitution for spaces encountered in user and group
names.
1. Click Access > Settings.
2. Configure the following settings as needed.

Option Description
Send NTLMv2 Specifies whether to send only NTLMv2 responses to SMB clients with NTLM-compatible credentials.
On-Disk Identity Controls the preferred identity to store on disk. If OneFS is unable to convert an identity to the
preferred format, it is stored as is. This setting does not affect identities that are currently stored on
disk. Select one of the following settings:

native Allow OneFS to determine the identity to store on disk. This is the recommended
setting.
unix Always store incoming UNIX identifiers (UIDs and GIDs) on disk.
sid Store incoming Windows security identifiers (SIDs) on disk, unless the SID was
generated from a UNIX identifier; in that case, convert it back to the UNIX
identifier and store it on disk.

Workgroup Specifies the NetBIOS workgroup. The default value is WORKGROUP.

Space For clients that have difficulty parsing spaces in user and group names, specifies a substitute
Replacement character.
3. Click Save.
If you changed the on-disk identity selection, it is recommended that you run the PermissionRepair job with the Convert repair
type to prevent potential permissions errors. For more information, see the Run the PermissionRepair job section.

Modify ACL policy settings

You can modify ACL policy settings but the default ACL policy settings are sufficient for most cluster deployments.
CAUTION: Because ACL policies change the behavior of permissions throughout the system, they should be
modified only as necessary by experienced administrators with advanced knowledge of Windows ACLs. This is
especially true for the advanced settings, which are applied regardless of the cluster's environment.
For UNIX, Windows, or balanced environments, the optimal permission policy settings are selected and cannot be modified.
However, you can choose to manually configure the cluster's default permission settings if necessary to support your particular
environment.
1. Click Access > ACL Policy Settings.
2. In the Environment area, select the option that best describes your environment, or select Custom environment to
configure individual permission policies.
3. If you selected the Custom environment option, settings in the General ACL Settings area as needed.
4. In the Advanced ACL Settings area, configure the settings as needed.

Related references
ACL policy settings

160 Data access control

ACL policy settings
You can configure an access control list (ACL) policy by choosing from the available settings options.

Environment
Depending on the environment you select, the system will automatically select the General ACL Settings and Advanced ACL
Settings options that are optimal for that environment. You also have the option to manually configure general and advanced
settings.

Balanced Enables PowerScale cluster permissions to operate in a mixed UNIX and Windows environment. This
setting is recommended for most PowerScale cluster deployments.
UNIX only Enables PowerScale cluster permissions to operate with UNIX semantics, as opposed to Windows
semantics. Enabling this option prevents ACL creation on the system.
Windows only Enables PowerScale cluster permissions to operate with Windows semantics, as opposed to UNIX
semantics. Enabling this option causes the system to return an error on UNIX chmod requests.
Custom Allows you to configure General ACL Settings and Advanced ACL Settings options.
environment

General ACL Settings

ACL Creation Specifies whether to allow or deny creation of ACLs over SMB. Select one of the following options:
Through SMB
Do not allow Prevents ACL creation on the cluster.
ACLs to be
created through
SMB
Allow ACLs to be Allows ACL creation on the cluster.
created through
SMB

NOTE: Inheritable ACLs on the system take precedence over this setting. If inheritable ACLs are set
on a folder, any new files and folders that are created in that folder inherit the folder's ACL. Disabling
this setting does not remove ACLs currently set on files. If you want to clear an existing ACL, run the
chmod -b <mode> <file> command to remove the ACL and set the correct permissions.

Use the chmod Specifies how permissions are handled when a chmod operation is initiated on a file with an ACL, either
Command On locally or over NFS. This setting controls any elements that affect UNIX permissions, including File
Files With System Explorer. Enabling this policy setting does not change how chmod operations affect files that do
Existing ACLs not have ACLs. Select one of the following options:

Remove the For chmod operations, removes any existing ACL and instead sets the chmod
existing ACL permissions. Select this option only if you do not need permissions to be set from
and set Windows.
UNIX permissions
instead
Remove the Stores the UNIX permissions in a new Windows ACL. Select this option only if
existing ACL and you want to remove Windows permissions but do not want files to have synthetic
create an ACL ACLs.
equivalent to the
UNIX permissions
Remove the Stores the UNIX permissions in a new Windows ACL only for users and groups
existing ACL that are referenced by the old ACL. Select this option only if you want to remove
and create an Windows permissions but do not want files to have synthetic ACLs.
ACL equivalent
to the UNIX
permissions, for

Data access control 161

 all users/groups
referenced in old
ACL
Merge the new Merges permissions that are applied by chmod with existing ACLs. An ACE for
permissions with each identity (owner, group, and everyone) is either modified or created, but all
the existing ACL other ACEs are unmodified. Inheritable ACEs are also left unmodified to enable
Windows users to continue to inherit appropriate permissions. However, UNIX
users can set specific permissions for each of those three standard identities.
Deny permission Prevents users from making NFS and local chmod operations. Enable this setting if
to modify the you do not want to allow permission sets over NFS.
ACL
Ignore operation Prevents an NFS client from changing the ACL. Select this option if you defined an
if file has an inheritable ACL on a directory and want to use that ACL for permissions.
existing ACL

CAUTION: If you try to run the chmod command on the same permissions that are currently
set on a file with an ACL, you may cause the operation to silently fail. The operation appears
to be successful, but if you were to examine the permissions on the cluster, you would
notice that the chmod command had no effect. As an alternative, you can run the chmod
command away from the current permissions and then perform a second chmod command to
revert to the original permissions. For example, if the file shows 755 UNIX permissions and
you want to confirm this number, you could run chmod 700 file; chmod 755 file.

ACLs Created On Windows systems, the ACEs for directories can define detailed inheritance rules. On a UNIX system,
On Directories the mode bits are not inherited. Making ACLs that are created on directories by the chmod command
By the chmod inheritable is more secure for tightly controlled environments but may deny access to some Windows
Command users who would otherwise expect access. Select one of the following options:
● Make ACLs inheritable
● Do not make ACLs inheritable
Use the chown/ Changes the user or group that has ownership of a file or folder. Select one of the following options:
chgrp On Files
With Existing Modify only the Enables the chown or chgrp operation to perform as it does in UNIX. Enabling this
ACLs owner and/or setting modifies any ACEs in the ACL associated with the old and new owner or
group group.
Modify the owner Enables the NFS chown or chgrp operation to function as it does in Windows.
and/or group and When a file owner is changed over Windows, no permissions in the ACL are
ACL permissions changed.
Ignore operation Prevents an NFS client from changing the owner or group.
if file has an
existing ACL

NOTE: Over NFS, the chown or chgrp operation changes the permissions and user or group that
has ownership. For example, a file that is owned by user Joe with rwx------ (700) permissions
indicates rwx permissions for the owner, but no permissions for anyone else. If you run the chown
command to change ownership of the file to user Bob, the owner permissions are still rwx but they
now represent the permissions for Bob, rather than for Joe, who lost all of his permissions. This
setting does not affect UNIX chown or chgrp operations that are performed on files with UNIX
permissions, and it does not affect Windows chown or chgrp operations, which do not change any
permissions.

Access checks In UNIX environments, only the file owner or superuser has the right to run a chmod or chown operation
(chmod, chown) on a file. In Windows environments, you can implement this policy setting to give users the right to
perform chmod operations that change permissions, or the right to perform chown operations that take
ownership, but do not give away ownership. Select one of the following options:

Allow only the Enables chmod and chown access checks to operate with UNIX-like behavior.
file owner to

162 Data access control

 change the mode
or owner of the
file (UNIX model)
Allow the file Enables chmod and chown access checks to operate with Windows-like behavior.
owner and
users with
WRITE_DAC and
WRITE_OWNER
permissions to
change the mode
or owner of the
file (Windows
model)

Advanced ACL Settings

Treatment of In UNIX environments, rwx permissions indicate that a user or group has read, write, and execute
'rwx' permissions permissions and that a user or group has the maximum level of permissions.
When you assign UNIX permissions to a file, no ACLs are stored for that file. Because a Windows system
processes only ACLs, the PowerScale cluster must translate the UNIX permissions into an ACL when you
view a file's permissions on a Windows system. This type of ACL is called a synthetic ACL. Synthetic ACLs
are not stored anywhere; instead, they are dynamically generated and discarded as needed. If a file has
UNIX permissions, you may notice synthetic ACLs when you run the ls file command to view a file’s
ACLs.
When you generate a synthetic ACL, the PowerScale cluster maps UNIX permissions to Windows rights.
Windows supports a more granular permissions model than UNIX does, and it specifies rights that cannot
easily be mapped from UNIX permissions. If the PowerScale cluster maps rwx permissions to Windows
rights, you must enable one of the following options:

Retain 'rwx' Generates an ACE that provides only read, write, and execute permissions.
permissions
Treat 'rwx' Generates an ACE that provides the maximum Windows permissions for a user or
permissions as a group by adding the change permissions right, the take ownership right, and the
Full Control delete right.

Group Owner Operating systems tend to work with group ownership and permissions in two different PowerScale group
Inheritance owner from the file creator's primary group. If you enable a setting that causes the group owner to
be inherited from the creator's primary group, you can override it on a per-folder basis by running the
chmod command to set the set-gid bit. This inheritance applies only when the file is created. For more
information, see the manual page for the chmod command.
Select one of the following options:

When an ACL Specifies that if an ACL exists on a file, the group owner is inherited from the file
exists, use Linux creator's primary group. If there is no ACL, the group owner is inherited from the
and Windows parent folder.
semantics,
otherwise use
BSD semantics
BSD semantics Specifies that the group owner be inherited from the file's parent folder.
- Inherit group
owner from the
parent folder
Linux and Specifies that the group owner be inherited from the file creator's primary group.
Windows
semantics -
Inherit group
owner from the

Data access control 163

 creator's primary
group

chmod (007) Specifies whether to remove ACLs when running the chmod (007) command. Select one of the
On Files With following options.
Existing ACLs
chmod(007) does Sets 007 UNIX permissions without removing an existing ACL.
not remove
existing ACL
chmod(007) Removes ACLs from files over UNIX file sharing (NFS) and locally on the cluster
removes existing through the chmod (007) command. If you enable this setting, be sure to run
ACL and sets 007 the chmod command on the file immediately after using chmod (007) to clear an
UNIX permissions ACL. In most cases, you do not want to leave 007 permissions on the file.

Approximate Windows ACLs are more complex than UNIX permissions. When a UNIX client requests UNIX permissions
Owner Mode Bits for a file with an ACL over NFS, the client receives an approximation of the file's actual permissions.
When ACL Exists Running the ls -l command from a UNIX client returns a more open set of permissions than the user
expects. This permissiveness compensates for applications that incorrectly inspect the UNIX permissions
themselves when determining whether to try a file-system operation. The purpose of this policy setting
is to ensure that these applications go with the operation to allow the file system to correctly determine
user access through the ACL. Select one of the following options:

Approximate Causes the owner permissions appear more permissive than the actual permissions
owner mode bits on the file.
using all possible
group ACEs in
ACL
Approximate Causes the owner permissions appear more accurate, in that you see only the
owner mode bits permissions for a particular owner and not the more permissive set. This may cause
using only the access-denied problems for UNIX clients, however.
ACE with the
owner ID

Approximate Select one of the following options for group permissions:

Group Mode Bits
When ACL Exists Approximate Makes the group permissions appear more permissive than the actual permissions
group mode bits on the file.
using all possible
group ACEs in
ACL
Approximate Makes the group permissions appear more accurate, in that you see only the
group mode bits permissions for a particular group and not the more permissive set. This may cause
using only the access-denied problems for UNIX clients, however.
ACE with the
group ID

Synthetic "deny" The Windows ACL user interface cannot display an ACL if any deny ACEs are out of canonical ACL order.
ACEs To correctly represent UNIX permissions, deny ACEs may be required to be out of canonical ACL order.
Select one of the following options:

Do not modify Prevents modifications to synthetic ACL generation and allows “deny” ACEs to be
synthetic ACLs generated when necessary.
and mode bit CAUTION: This option can lead to permissions being reordered,
approximations permanently denying access if a Windows user or an application
performs an ACL get, an ACL modification, and an ACL set to and from
Windows.

Remove “deny” Does not include deny ACEs when generating synthetic ACLs.
ACEs from ACLs.
This setting
can cause ACLs
to be more

164 Data access control

 permissive than
the equivalent
mode bits

Access check You can control who can change utimes, which are the access and modification times of a file. Select one
(utimes) of the following options:

Allow only Allows only owners to change utimes, which complies with the POSIX standard.
owners to
change utimes
to client-specific
times (POSIX
compliant)
Allow owners and Allows owners as well as users with write access to modify utimes, which is less
users with ‘write’ restrictive.
access to change
utimes to client-
specific times

Read-only DOS
Deny permission Duplicates DOS-attribute permissions behavior over only the SMB protocol, so that
attribute
to modify files files use the read-only attribute over SMB.
with DOS read-
only attribute
over Windows
Files Sharing
(SMB)
Deny permission Duplicates DOS-attribute permissions behavior over both NFS and SMB protocols.
to modify files For example, if permissions are read-only on a file over SMB, permissions are
with DOS read- read-only over NFS.
only attribute
through NFS and
SMB

Displayed mode
Use ACL Displays the approximation of the NFS mode bits that are based on ACL
bits
to approximate permissions.
mode bits
Always display Displays 777 file permissions. If the approximated NFS permissions are less
777 if ACL exists permissive than those in the ACL, you may want to use this setting so the NFS
client does not stop at the access check before performing its operation. Use this
setting when a third-party application may be blocked if the ACL does not provide
the proper access.

Related tasks
Modify ACL policy settings

Run the PermissionRepair job

You can update file and directory permissions or ownership by running the PermissionRepair job. To prevent permissions issues
that can occur after changing the on-disk identity, run this job with the Convert repair type to ensure that the changes are fully
propagated throughout the cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. Optional: From the Job Types table, click View/Edit in the PermissionRepair row.
The View Job Type Details window appears.
3. Click Edit Job Type.
The Edit Job Type Details window appears.
4. Select Enable this job type.

Data access control 165

5. From the Default Priority list, select a priority number that specifies the job's priority among all running jobs. Job priority is
denoted as 1-10, with 1 being the highest and 10 being the lowest.
6. Optional: From the Default Impact Policy list, select an impact policy for the job to follow.
7. From the Schedule area, specify how the job should be started.

Option Description
Manual The job must be started manually.
Scheduled The job is regularly scheduled. Select the schedule option from the drop-down list and specify the schedule
details.
8. Click Save Changes, and then click Close.
9. Optional: From the Job Types table, click Start Job.
The Start a Job window opens.
10. Select or clear the Allow Duplicate Jobs checkbox.
11. Optional: From the Impact policy list, select an impact policy for the job to follow.
12. In the Paths field, type or browse to the directory in /ifs whose permissions you want to repair.
13. Optional: Click Add another directory path and in the added Paths field, type or browse for an additional directory
in /ifs whose permissions you want to repair.
You can repeat this step to add directory paths as needed.
14. From the Repair Type list, select one of the following methods for updating permissions:

Option Description
Clone Applies the permissions settings for the directory that is specified by the Template File or Directory setting to
the directory you set in the Paths fields.
Inherit Recursively applies the ACL of the directory that is specified by the Template File or Directory setting to each
file and subdirectory in the specified Paths fields, according to standard inheritance rules.
Convert For each file and directory in the specified Paths fields, converts the owner, group, and access control list (ACL)
to the target on-disk identity based on the Mapping Type setting.

The remaining settings options differ depending on the selected repair type.
15. In the Template File or Directory field, type or browse to the directory in /ifs that you want to copy permissions from.
This setting applies only to the Clone and Inherit repair types.
16. Optional: From the Mapping Type list, select the preferred on-disk identity type to apply. This setting applies only to the
Convert repair type.

Option Description
Global Applies the system's default identity.
SID (Windows) Applies the Windows identity.
UNIX Applies the UNIX identity.
Native If a user or group does not have an authoritative UNIX identifier (UID or GID), applies the Windows
identity (SID)
17. Optional: Click Start Job.

166 Data access control

 10
File sharing
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• File sharing overview
• SMB security
• NFS security
• FTP
• HTTP and HTTPS security

File sharing overview

Multiprotocol support in OneFS enables accessing files and directories on the PowerScale cluster through SMB for Windows file
sharing, NFS for UNIX file sharing, secure shell (SSH), FTP, and HTTP.
By default, all file sharing protocols are disabled. You enable each protocol that you intend to use and configure the default
share for each protocol. For example, you can configure the /ifs directory as an SMB share and an NFS export.
NOTE: It is recommended that you do not save data to the root /ifs file path but in directories below /ifs. The
design of your data storage structure should be planned carefully. A well-designed directory structure optimizes cluster
performance and administration.
You can set Windows- and UNIX-based permissions on OneFS files and directories. With the required permissions and
administrative privileges, you can create, modify, and read data on the cluster through one or more of the supported file
sharing protocols.
● SMB. Allows Microsoft Windows and MacOS X clients to access files that are stored on the cluster.
● NFS. Allows Linux and UNIX clients that adhere to the RFC1813 (NFSv3) and RFC3530 (NFSv4) specifications to access
files that are stored on the cluster.
● HTTP and HTTPS (with optional DAV). Allows clients to access files that are stored on the cluster through a web browser.
● FTP. Allows any client that is equipped with an FTP client program to access files that are stored on the cluster through the
FTP protocol.

Mixed protocol environments

You enable the protocols that you intend to use for file sharing. You can configure your OneFS cluster to use SMB or NFS
exclusively, or both. You can also enable HTTP, FTP, and SSH. You configure default shares and exports for each protocol that
you enable.
Use the isi services protocol enable command to enable each protocol. For example, to enable NFS, use the following
command.

isi services nfs enable

Access rights are consistently enforced across access protocols on all security models. For example, a user is granted or denied
the same rights to a file whether using SMB, NFS, or HDFS. Clusters running OneFS support global policy settings that enable
you to customize the default access control list (ACL) and UNIX permissions settings. OneFS 9.3.0.0 and later supports HDFS
ACLs.
OneFS is configured with standard UNIX permissions on the file tree. Through Windows Explorer or OneFS administrative tools,
you can give any file or directory an ACL. In addition to Windows domain users and groups, ACLs in OneFS can include local,
NIS, and LDAP users and groups. After a file is given an ACL, the mode bits are no longer enforced and exist only as an estimate
of the effective permissions.

File sharing 167

 NOTE: It is recommended that you configure ACL and UNIX permissions only if you fully understand how they interact with
one another.

Write caching with SmartCache

Write caching accelerates the process of writing data to the cluster. OneFS includes a write-caching feature called SmartCache,
which is enabled by default for all files and directories.
If write caching is enabled, OneFS writes data to a write-back cache instead of immediately writing the data to disk. OneFS can
write the data to disk at a time that is more convenient.

NOTE: We recommend that you keep write caching enabled. You should also enable write caching for all file pool policies.

OneFS interprets writes to the cluster as either synchronous or asynchronous, depending on a client's specifications. The
impacts and risks of write caching depend on what protocols clients use to write to the cluster, and whether the writes are
interpreted as synchronous or asynchronous. If you disable write caching, client specifications are ignored and all writes are
performed synchronously.
The following table explains how clients' specifications are interpreted, according to the protocol.

Protocol Synchronous Asynchronous

NFS The stable field is set to data_sync or The stable field is set to unstable.
file_sync.

SMB The write-through flag has been The write-through flag has not been
applied. applied.

Write caching for asynchronous writes

Writing to the cluster asynchronously with write caching is the fastest method of writing data to your cluster.
Write caching for asynchronous writes requires fewer cluster resources than write caching for synchronous writes, and will
improve overall cluster performance for most workflows. However, there is some risk of data loss with asynchronous writes.
The following table describes the risk of data loss for each protocol when write caching for asynchronous writes is enabled:

Protocol Risk
NFS If a node fails, no data will be lost except in the unlikely event
that a client of that node also crashes before it can reconnect
to the cluster. In that situation, asynchronous writes that have
not been committed to disk will be lost.
SMB If a node fails, asynchronous writes that have not been
committed to disk will be lost.

We recommend that you do not disable write caching, regardless of the protocol that you are writing with. If you are writing to
the cluster with asynchronous writes, and you decide that the risks of data loss are too great, we recommend that you configure
your clients to use synchronous writes, rather than disable write caching.

Write caching for synchronous writes

Write caching for synchronous writes costs cluster resources, including a negligible amount of storage space. Although it is
not as fast as write caching with asynchronous writes, unless cluster resources are extremely limited, write caching with
synchronous writes is faster than writing to the cluster without write caching.
Write caching does not affect the integrity of synchronous writes; if a cluster or a node fails, none of the data in the write-back
cache for synchronous writes is lost.

168 File sharing

SMB security
OneFS includes a configurable SMB service to create and manage SMB shares. SMB shares provide Windows clients with
network access to file system resources on the cluster. You can grant permissions to users and groups to perform operations
such as reading, writing, and setting access permissions on SMB shares.
SMB is disabled by default. To enable SMB, use the following command:

isi services smb enable

You then configure the default SMB share. See the section Managing SMB shares for more information.
OneFS supports both user and anonymous security modes. If the user security mode is enabled, users who connect to a share
from an SMB client must provide a valid user name with proper credentials.
SMB shares act as checkpoints, and users must have access to a share in order to access objects in a file system on a share.
If a user has access granted to a file system, but not to the share on which it resides, that user will not be able to access the
file system regardless of privileges. For example, assume a share named ABCDocs contains a file named file1.txt in a path
such as: /ifs/data/ABCDocs/file1.txt. If a user attempting to access file1.txt does not have share privileges on
ABCDocs, that user cannot access the file even if originally granted write privileges to the file.
The SMB protocol uses security identifiers (SIDs) for authorization data. All identities are converted to SIDs during retrieval and
are converted back to their on-disk representation before they are stored on the cluster.
When a file or directory is created, OneFS checks the access control list (ACL) of its parent directory. If the ACL contains any
inheritable access control entries (ACEs), a new ACL is generated from those ACEs. Otherwise, OneFS creates an ACL from the
combined file and directory create mask and create mode settings.
OneFS supports the following SMB clients:

SMB version Supported operating systems

3.0 - Multichannel only Windows 8 or later
Windows Server 2012 or later

2.1 Windows 7 or later

Windows Server 2008 R2 or later

2.0 Windows Vista or later

Windows Server 2008 or later
Mac OS X 10.9 or later

1.0 Windows 2000 or later

Windows XP or later
Mac OS X 10.5 or later

Related concepts
Managing SMB settings
Managing SMB shares

SMB shares in access zones

You can create and manage SMB shares within access zones.
You can create access zones that partition storage on the cluster into multiple virtual containers. Access zones support all
configuration settings for authentication and identity management services on the cluster. That means that you can configure
authentication providers and provision SMB shares on a zone-by-zone basis. When you create an access zone, a local provider
is created automatically. That allows you to configure each access zone with a list of local users and groups. You can also
authenticate through a different Active Directory provider in each access zone. You can also control data access by directing
incoming connections to the access zone from a specific IP address in a pool. Associating an access zone with an IP address
pool restricts authentication to the associated access zone and reduces the number of available and accessible SMB shares.

File sharing 169

Here are a few ways to simplify SMB management with access zones:
● Migrate multiple SMB servers, such as Windows file servers or NetApp filers, to a single PowerScale cluster, and then
configure a separate access zone for each SMB server.
● Configure each access zone with a unique set of SMB share names that do not conflict with share names in other access
zones, and then join each access zone to a different Active Directory domain.
● Reduce the number of available and accessible shares to manage by associating an IP address pool with an access zone to
restrict authentication to the zone.
● Configure default SMB share settings that apply to all shares in an access zone.
The cluster includes an integrated access zone named System. The System access zone is where you manage all aspects of
the cluster and other access zones. If you do not specify an access zone when managing SMB shares, OneFS defaults to the
System zone.

SMB Multichannel
SMB Multichannel supports establishing a single SMB session over multiple network connections.
SMB Multichannel is a feature of the SMB 3.0 protocol that provides the following capabilities:

Increased OneFS can transmit more data to a client through multiple connections over high speed network adapters
throughput or over multiple network adapters.
Connection When an SMB Multichannel session is established over multiple network connections, the session is not
failure tolerance lost if one of the connections has a network fault, which enables the client to continue to work.
Automatic SMB Multichannel automatically discovers supported hardware configurations on the client that have
discovery multiple available network paths and then negotiates and establishes a session over multiple network
connections. You are not required to install components, roles, role services, or features.

SMB Multichannel requirements

You must meet software and NIC configuration requirements to support SMB Multichannel on a cluster.
OneFS can only support SMB Multichannel when the following software requirements are met:
● Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2 or Windows 8, 8.1 clients
● SMB Multichannel must be enabled on both the cluster and the Windows client computer. It is enabled on the cluster by
default.
SMB Multichannel establishes a single SMB session over multiple network connections only on supported network interface card
(NIC) configurations. SMB Multichannel requires at least one of the following NIC configurations on the client computer:
● Two or more network interface cards.
● One or more network interface cards that support Receive Side Scaling (RSS).
● One or more network interface cards configured with link aggregation. Link aggregation enables you to combine the
bandwidth of multiple NICs on a node into a single logical interface.

Client-side NIC configurations supported by SMB Multichannel

SMB Multichannel automatically discovers supported hardware configurations on the client that have multiple available network
paths.
Each node on the cluster has at least one RSS-capable network interface card (NIC). Your client-side NIC configuration
determines how SMB Multichannel establishes simultaneous network connections per SMB session.

Client-side NIC Description

Configuration
Single RSS-capable NIC SMB Multichannel establishes a maximum of four network connections to the PowerScale cluster
over the NIC. The connections are more likely to be spread across multiple CPU cores, which
reduces the likelihood of performance bottleneck issues and achieves the maximum speed
capability of the NIC.

170 File sharing

Client-side NIC Description
Configuration
Multiple NICs If the NICs are RSS-capable, SMB Multichannel establishes a maximum of four network
connections to the PowerScale cluster over each NIC. If the NICs on the client are not RSS-
capable, SMB Multichannel establishes a single network connection to the PowerScale cluster
over each NIC. Both configurations allow SMB Multichannel to leverage the combined bandwidth
of multiple NICs and provides connection fault tolerance if a connection or a NIC fails.
NOTE: SMB Multichannel cannot establish more than eight simultaneous network
connections per session. In a multiple NIC configuration, this might limit the number
connections allowed per NIC. For example, if the configuration contains three RSS-capable
NICs, SMB Multichannel might establish three connections over the first NIC, three
connections over the second NIC and two connections over the third NIC.

Aggregated NICs SMB Multichannel establishes multiple network connections to the PowerScale cluster
over aggregated NICs, which results in balanced connections across CPU cores, effective
consumption of combined bandwidth, and connection fault tolerance.
NOTE: The aggregated NIC configuration inherently provides NIC fault tolerance that is not
dependent upon SMB.

SMB share management through MMC

OneFS supports the Shared Folders snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), which allows SMB shares on the
cluster to be managed using the MMC tool.
Typically, you connect to the global System zone through the web administration interface or the command line interface to
manage and configure shares. If you configure access zones, you can connect to a zone through the MMC Shared Folders
snap-in to directly manage all shares in that zone.
You can establish a connection through the MMC Shared Folders snap-in to a PowerScale node and perform the following SMB
share management tasks:
● Create and delete shared folders
● Configure access permission to an SMB share
● View a list of active SMB sessions
● Close open SMB sessions
● View a list of open files
● Close open files
When you connect to a zone through the MMC Shared Folders snap-in, you can view and manage all SMB shares assigned to
that zone; however, you can only view active SMB sessions and open files on the specific node that you are connected to in
that zone. Changes you make to shares through the MMC Shared Folders snap-in are propagated across the cluster.

MMC connection requirements

You can connect to a cluster through the MMC Shared Folders snap-in if you meet access requirements.
The following conditions are required to establish a connection through the MMC Shared Folders snap-in:
● You must run the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) from a Windows workstation that is joined to the domain of an
Active Directory (AD) provider configured on the cluster.
● You must be a member of the local <cluster>\Administrators group.
NOTE: Role-based access control (RBAC) privileges do not apply to the MMC. A role with SMB privileges is not
sufficient to gain access.
● You must log in to a Windows workstation as an Active Directory user that is a member of the local <cluster>\Administrators
group.

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SMBv3 encryption
Certain Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac client/server combinations can support data encryption in SMBv3 environments.
You can configure SMBv3 encryption on a per-share, per-zone, or cluster-wide basis. You can allow encrypted and unencrypted
clients access. Globally and for access zones, you can also require that all client connections are encrypted.
If you set encryption settings on a per-zone basis, those settings will override global server settings.

NOTE: Per-zone and per-share encryption settings can only be configured through the OneFS command line interface.

Enable SMBv3 encryption

You can modify SMBv3 encryption settings on your cluster. By default, SMBv3 encryption is disabled.
To enable SMBv3 encryption, and permit both encrypted and unencrypted clients access to the server:
1. Go to Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > Server Settings.
2. In the Encryption section, under Enable encryption on encryption-capable SMB clients, select Use Custom.
3. Check Enable encryption on encryption-capable SMB clients.
Both encrypted and unencrypted clients are allowed access.

Reject unencrypted SMBv3 client access

You can globally deny access from unencrypted SMBv3 clients.
To reject unencrypted SMBv3 client access:
1. Go to Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > Server Settings.
2. In the Encryption section, under Reject unencrypted acces, click Use Custom.
3. Check Reject unencrypted access.

SMB server-side copy

In order to increase system performance, SMB 2 and later clients can utilize the server-side copy feature in OneFS.
Windows clients making use of server-side copy support may experience performance improvements for file copy operations,
because file data no longer needs to traverse the network. The server-side copy feature reads and writes files only on the
server, avoiding the network round-trip and duplication of file data. This feature only affects file copy or partial copy operations
in which the source and destination file handles are open on the same share, and does not work for cross-share operations.
This feature is enabled by default across OneFS clusters, and can only be disabled system-wide across all zones. Additionally,
server-side copy in OneFS is incompatible with the SMB continuous availability feature. If continuous availability is enabled for a
share and the client opens a persistent file handle, server-side copy is automatically disabled for that file.

NOTE: You can only disable or enable SMB server-side copy for OneFS using the command line interface (CLI).

Enable or disable SMB server-side copy

You can enable or disable the SMB server-side copy feature.
The SMB server-side copy feature is enabled in OneFS by default.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to the cluster.
2. Run the isi smb settings global modify command.
3. Modify the --server-side-copy option as necessary.
This feature is enabled by default.
For example, the following command disables SMB server-side copy:

isi smb settings global modify --server-side-copy=no

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SMB continuous availability
If you are running OneFS in an SMB 3.0 environment, you allow certain Windows clients to open files on a server with
continuous availability enabled.
If a server is using Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, clients can create persistent file handles that can be reclaimed after an
outage such as a network-related disconnection or a server failure. You can specify how long the persistent handle is retained
after a disconnection or server failure, and also force strict lockouts on users attempting to open a file belonging to another
handle. Furthermore, through the OneFS command-line interface (CLI), you can configure write integrity settings to control the
stability of writes to the share.
If continuous availability is enabled for a share and the client opens a persistent file handle, server-side copy is automatically
disabled for that file.
NOTE: You can only enable continuous availability when creating a share, but you can update timeout, lockout, and write
integrity settings when creating or modifying a share.

Enable SMB continuous availability

You can enable SMB 3.0 continuous availability and configure settings when you create a share.
You can also update continuous availability timeout, lockout, and write integrity settings when you modify a share.
1. Go to Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.
2. Click Create an SMB share.
The Create an SMB Share window opens.
3. Select Enable continuous availability on the share.
4. Optional: Click Show Advanced Settings.
5. Optional: In the Continuous Availability Timeout field, specify the amount of time you want a persistent handle to be
retained after a client is disconnected or a server fails. The default is 2 minutes.
6. Optional: Set Strict Continuous Availability Lockout to Yes to prevent a client from opening a file if another client has an
open but disconnected persistent handle for that file. If set to no, OneFS issues persistent handles, but discards them if any
client other than the original opener tries to access the file. The default is Yes.
7. Click Create Share.
8. To configure write integrity settings:
a. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection for the OneFS command line interface (CLI).
b. Set the --ca-write-integrity parameter to one of the following:

none Continuously available writes are not handled differently than other writes to the cluster. If you
specify none and a node fails, you may experience data loss without notification. This setting is
not recommended.
write-read- Writes to the share are moved to persistent storage before a success message is returned to the
coherent SMB client that sent the data. This is the default setting.
full Writes to the share are moved to persistent storage before a success message is returned to the
SMB client that sent the data, and prevents OneFS from granting SMB clients write-caching and
handle-caching leases.

SMB file filtering

You can use SMB file filtering to allow or deny file writes to a share or access zone.
This feature enables you to deny certain types of files that might cause throughput issues, security problems, storage clutter, or
productivity disruptions. You can restrict writes by allowing writes of certain file types to a share.
● If you choose to deny file writes, you can specify file types by extension that are not allowed to be written. OneFS permits all
other file types to be written to the share.
● If you choose to allow file writes, you can specify file types by extension that are allowed to be written. OneFS denies all
other file types to be written to the share.
You can add or remove file extensions if your restriction policies change.

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Enable SMB file filtering
You can enable or disable SMB file filtering for a share.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > Default Share Settings.
2. Select Enable file filters.
The file extensions settings are displayed.
3. From the File Extensions list, select one of the following:
● Deny writes for list of file extensions. The file types that you specify cannot be written to the share.
● Allow writes for list of file extensions. The file types that you specify are the only file types that are allowed to be
written to the share.
4. Click Add file extensions.
5. Type a file type, such as .wav or .mpg, in the File Extensions field.
6. Optional: To specify more file types, click Add another file extension.
7. Click Add Extensions to save the changes.
8. To remove a file type from the list of extensions, select the check box that corresponds to the extension, then click Delete.

Symbolic links and SMB clients

OneFS enables SMB2 clients to access symbolic links in a seamless manner. Many administrators deploy symbolic links to
virtually reorder file system hierarchies, especially when crucial files or directories are scattered around an environment.
In an SMB share, a symbolic link (also known as a symlink or a soft link) is a type of file that contains a path to a target
file or directory. Symbolic links are transparent to applications running on SMB clients, and they function as typical files and
directories. Support for relative and absolute links is enabled by the SMB client. The specific configuration depends on the client
type and version.
A symbolic link that points to a network file or directory that is not in the path of the active SMB session is referred to as an
absolute (or remote) link. Absolute links always point to the same location on a file system, regardless of the present working
directory, and usually contain the root directory as part of the path. Conversely, a relative link is a symbolic link that points
directly to a user's or application's working directory, so you do not have to specify the full absolute path when creating the link.
OneFS exposes symbolic links through the SMB2 protocol, enabling SMB2 clients to resolve the links instead of relying
on OneFS to resolve the links on behalf of the clients. To transverse a relative or absolute link, the SMB client must be
authenticated to the SMB shares that the link can be followed through. However, if the SMB client does not have permission to
access the share, access to the target is denied and Windows will not prompt the user for credentials.
SMB2 and NFS links are interoperable for relative links only. For maximum compatibility, create these links from a POSIX client.
NOTE: SMB1 clients (such as Windows XP or 2002) may still use relative links, but they are traversed on the server side
and referred to as "shortcut files." Absolute links do not work in these environments.

Enabling symbolic links

Before you can fully use symbolic links in an SMB environment, you must enable them.
For Windows SMB clients to traverse each type of symbolic link, you must enable them on the client. Windows supports the
following link types:
● local to local
● remote to remote
● local to remote
● remote to local
You must run the following Windows command to enable all four link types:

fsutil behavior set SymlinkEvaluation L2L:1 R2R:1 L2R:1 R2L:1

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For POSIX clients using Samba, you must set the following options in the [global] section of your Samba configuration file
(smb.conf) to enable Samba clients to traverse relative and absolute links:

follow symlinks=yes
wide links=yes

In this case, "wide links" in the smb.conf file refers to absolute links. The default setting in this file is no.

Managing symbolic links

After enabling symbolic links, you can create or delete them from the Windows command prompt or a POSIX command line.
Create symbolic links using the Windows mklink command on an SMB2 client or the ln command from a POSIX command-line
interface. For example, an administrator may want to give a user named User1 access to a file named File1.doc in the /ifs/
data/ directory without giving specific access to that directory by creating a link named Link1:

mklink \ifs\home\users\User1\Link1 \ifs\data\Share1\File1.doc

When you create a symbolic link, it is designated as a file link or directory link. Once the link is set, the designation cannot be
changed. You can format symbolic link paths as either relative or absolute.
To delete symbolic links, use the del command in Windows, or the rm command in a POSIX environment.
Keep in mind that when you delete a symbolic link, the target file or directory still exists. However, when you delete a target file
or directory, a symbolic link continues to exist and still points to the old target, thus becoming a broken link.

Anonymous access to SMB shares

You can configure anonymous access to SMB shares by enabling the local Guest user and allowing impersonation of the guest
user.
For example, if you store files such as browser executables or other data that is public on the internet, anonymous access allows
any user to access the SMB share without authenticating.

Managing SMB settings

You can enable or disable the SMB service, configure global settings for the SMB service, and configure default SMB share
settings that are specific to each access zone.

Related concepts
SMB security

Configure SMB server settings

You can enable or disable the SMB server and configure global settings for SMB shares and snapshot directories.
CAUTION: Modifying the advanced settings can result in operational problems. Be aware of the potential
consequences before committing changes to these settings.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Server Settings.
2. In the Service area, select Enable SMB Service.
3. In the Advanced Settings area, choose the system default or a custom configuration for the following settings:
● Visible at root
● Accessible at root
● Visible in subdirectories
● Accessible in subdirectories
● Encryption settings
4. Click Save Changes.

File sharing 175

Related concepts
SMB security

Related references
File and directory permission settings
Snapshots directory settings
SMB performance settings
SMB security settings

Configure default SMB share settings

You can configure SMB share default settings by access zone.
The default settings are applied to all existing shares in the access zone, and all new shares that are added to the access zone.
1. Click Protocols > Windows sharing (SMB) > Default share settings.
2. From the Current access zones drop-down list, select the access zone that the default settings apply to.
CAUTION: If you modify the default settings, the changes are applied to all existing shares in the access zone
selected. To modify settings for a specific SMB share, edit the share in the SMB shares tab.

3. In the File filter area, select Enable file filters to enable file filtering.
4. In the File extensions drop down, select to Deny or Allow writes for a list of file extensions.
a. Click Add file extensions to add extensions to the list.
b. Enter the file extension in the empty field. Continue adding file extensions as needed.
c. Click Add extensions.
5. In the Advanced settings area, choose the system default or a custom configuration for the following settings:
● Continuous availability timeout
● Strict continuous availability lockout
● Create permission
● Directory create mask
● Directory create mode
● File create mask
● File create mode
● Change notify
● Oplocks
● Impersonate guest
● Impersonate user
● NTFS ACL
● Access based enumeration
● Host ACL
6. Click Save changes.

Enable or disable SMB Multichannel

SMB Multichannel is required for multiple, concurrent SMB sessions from a Windows client computer to a node in a cluster.
SMB Multichannel is enabled in the cluster by default.
You can enable or disable SMB Multichannel only through the command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi smb settings global modify command.
The following command enables SMB Multichannel on the cluster:

isi smb settings global modify –-support-multichannel=yes

The following command disables SMB Multichannel on the cluster:

isi smb settings global modify –-support-multichannel=no

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Snapshots directory settings
You can view and configure the settings that control the snapshots directories in SMB.
CAUTION: These settings affect the behavior of the SMB service. Changes to these settings can affect all
current and future SMB shares.

Setting Setting value

Visible at Root Specifies whether to make the .snapshot directory visible at

the root of the share. The default value is Yes.

Accessible at Root Specifies whether to make the .snapshot directory accessible

at the root of the share. The default value is Yes.

Visible in Subdirectories Specifies whether to make the .snapshot directory visible in

subdirectories of the share root. The default value is No.

Accessible in Subdirectories Specifies whether to make the .snapshot directory accessible

in subdirectories of the share root. The default value is Yes.

Related concepts
SMB security

File and directory permission settings

You can view and configure the default source permissions and UNIX create mask/mode bits that are applied when a file or
directory is created in an SMB share.
NOTE: Changes that are made directly to an SMB share override the default settings that are configured from the Default
SMB Share Settings tab.
If the mask and mode bits match the default values, a green check mark next to a setting appears, indicating that the specified
read (R), write (W), or execute (X) permission is enabled at the user, group, or "other" level. The "other" level includes all users
who are not listed as the owner of the share, and are not part of the group level that the file belongs to.

Setting Setting value

Continuous Availability Timeout Specifies the amount of time you want a persistent handle to
be retained after a client is disconnected or a server fails. The
default is 2 minutes.
Strict Continuous Availability Lockout Prevents a client from opening a file if another client has an
open but disconnected persistent handle for that file. If set to
no, OneFS issues persistent handles, but discards them if any
client other than the original opener tries to open the file. The
default is no.

Create Permission Sets the default source permissions to apply when a file or
directory is created. The default value is Default ACL.

Directory Create Mask Specifies UNIX mode bits that are removed when a directory
is created, restricting permissions. Mask bits are applied
before mode bits are applied.
Directory Create Mode Specifies UNIX mode bits that are added when a directory
is created, enabling permissions. Mode bits are applied after
mask bits are applied.
File Create Mask Specifies UNIX mode bits that are removed when a file is
created, restricting permissions. Mask bits are applied before
mode bits are applied.

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Setting Setting value
File Create Mode Specifies UNIX mode bits that are added when a file is
created, enabling permissions. Mode bits are applied after
mask bits are applied.

Related concepts
SMB security

SMB performance settings

You can view and configure the change notify and oplocks performance settings of an SMB share.
NOTE: Changes that are made directly to an SMB share override the default settings configured from the Default SMB
Share Settings tab.

Setting Setting value

Change Notify Configures notification of clients when files or directories
change. This helps prevent clients from seeing stale
content, but requires server resources. The default value is
Norecurse.

Oplocks Indicates whether an opportunistic lock (oplock) request is

allowed. An oplock allows clients to provide performance
improvements by using locally-cached information. The default
value is Yes.

Related concepts
SMB security

SMB security settings

NOTE: Changes that are made directly to an SMB share override the default settings that are configured from the Default
Share Settings tab.
To view and configure the security settings for an individual SMB share, click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB
Shares, select the share, click View/Edit, and then click Edit SMB Share.
To view and configure the default SMB share security settings, click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > Default Share
Settings. The security settings are available in the Advanced Settings section.

Setting Setting value

Create Permission Sets the default source permissions to apply when a file or
directory is created. The default value is Default acl.

Directory Create Mask Specifies UNIX mode bits that are removed when a directory
is created, restricting permissions. Mask bits are applied
before mode bits are applied. The default value is that the
user has Read, Write, and Execute permissions.

Directory Create Mode Specifies UNIX mode bits that are added when a directory
is created, enabling permissions. Mode bits are applied after
mask bits are applied. The default value is None.

File Create Mask Specifies UNIX mode bits that are removed when a file is
created, restricting permissions. Mask bits are applied before
mode bits are applied. The default value is that the user has
Read, Write, and Execute permissions.

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Setting Setting value
File Create Mode Specifies UNIX mode bits that are added when a file is
created, enabling permissions. Mode bits are applied after
mask bits are applied. The default value is that the user has
Execute permissions.

Impersonate Guest Determines guest access to a share. The default value is

Never.

Impersonate User Allows all file access to be performed as a specific user. This
must be a fully qualified user name. The default value is No
value.

NTFS ACL Allows ACLs to be stored and edited from SMB clients. The
default value is Yes.

Access Based Enumeration Allows access based enumeration only on the files and folders
that the requesting user can access. The default value is No.

HOST ACL The ACL that defines host access. The default value is No
value.

Related concepts
SMB security

Managing SMB shares

You can configure the rules and other settings that govern the interaction between your Windows network and individual SMB
shares on the cluster.
OneFS supports %U, %D, %Z, %L, %0, %1, %2, and %3 variable expansion and automatic provisioning of user home directories.
You can configure the users and groups that are associated with an SMB share, and view or modify their share-level
permissions.
NOTE: We recommend that you configure advanced SMB share settings only if you have a solid understanding of the SMB
protocol.

Related concepts
SMB security

Create an SMB share

When you create an SMB share, you can override the default permissions, performance, and access settings. You can configure
SMB home directory provisioning by including expansion variables in the share path to automatically create and redirect users to
their own home directories.
Specify a directory path to use as the SMB share, and create the directory before you create an SMB share. Shares are specific
to access zones and the share path must exist under the zone path. Create access zones before you create SMB shares.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.
2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select the access zone where you want to create the share.
3. Click Create an SMB Share.
4. In the Name field, type a name for the share.
Share names can contain up to 80 characters, except for the following: " \ / [ ] : | < > + = ; , * ?
Also, if the cluster character encoding is not set to UTF-8, SMB share names are case-sensitive.

5. Optional: In the Description field, type a comment about the share.

A description is optional, but can be helpful if you are managing multiple shares. This field is limited to 255 characters.
6. In the Path field, type the full directory path of the share, beginning with /ifs, or click Browse to locate the directory
path.

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 NOTE: If you want to use any of the variables in the following table when you specify a directory path, select the Allow
Variable Expansion checkbox or the system interprets the string literally.

Variable Expansion

%D NetBIOS domain name.

%U Username—for example, user_001.

%Z Zone name—for example, System.

%L Hostname of the cluster, normalized to lowercase.

%0 First character of the username.

%1 Second character of the username.

%2 Third character of the username.

For example, if a user is in a domain that is named DOMAIN and has a username of user_1, the path /ifs/home/%D/%U
expands to /ifs/home/DOMAIN/user_1.
7. Select Create SMB share directory if it does not exist to have OneFS create the share directory for the
path you specified if it did not previously exist.
8. Apply the initial ACL settings for the directory. You can modify these settings later.
● To apply a default ACL to the shared directory, select Apply Windows default ACLs.
NOTE: If the Create SMB share directory if it does not exist setting is selected, OneFS creates an ACL with the
equivalent of UNIX 700 mode bit permissions for any directory that is created automatically.
● To maintain the existing permissions on the shared directory, select Do not change existing permissions.
9. Optional: Configure home directory provisioning settings.
● To expand path variables such as %U in the share directory path, select Allow Variable Expansion.
● To automatically create home directories when users access the share for the first time, select Auto-Create
Directories. This option is available only if the Allow Variable Expansion option is enabled.
10. Select the Enable continuous availability on the share to allow clients to create persistent handles that can be reclaimed
after an outage such as a network-related disconnection or a server failure. Servers must be using Windows 8 or Windows
2012 R2 (or higher).
11. Click Add User or Group to edit the user and group settings.
The default permissions configuration is read-only access for the well-known Everyone account. Modify settings to allow
users to write to the share.
12. Select Enable file filters in the File Filter Extensions section to enable support for file filtering. Add the file types to be
applied to the file filtering method.
13. Select Enable or Disable in the Encryption section to allow or disallow SMBv3 encrypted clients to connect to the share.
14. Optional: Click Show Advanced Settings to apply advanced SMB share settings if needed.
15. Click Create Share.

Related concepts
SMB security

Modify SMB share permissions, performance, or security

You can modify the permissions, performance, and access settings for individual SMB shares.
You can configure SMB home directory provisioning by using directory path, or expansion, variables to automatically create and
redirect users to their own home directories.
NOTE: Any changes that are made to these settings only affect the settings for this share. If you must change the default
SMB share values, that can be done from the Default SMB Share Settings tab.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.

180 File sharing

2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select the access zone that contains the share you want to modify.
3. From the list of SMB shares, locate the share that you want to modify and then click View/Edit.
The settings for the share display.
4. Click Edit SMB Share.
5. Modify the desired settings.
6. Optional: To modify the settings for file and directory permissions, performance, or security, click Show Advanced
Settings.
7. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
SMB security

Delete an SMB share

You can delete SMB shares that are no longer needed.
Unused SMB shares do not hinder cluster performance. If you delete an SMB share, the share path is deleted but the directory
it referenced still exists. If you create a new share with the same path as the share that was deleted, the directory that the
previous share referenced will be accessible again through the new share.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.
2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select the access zone that contains the share that you want to delete.
3. From the list of SMB shares, select the share that you want to delete.
NOTE: You can delete multiple shares on the cluster by selecting the check boxes next to the share name, and then
clicking Delete.

4. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete to confirm the deletion.

Related concepts
SMB security

Limit access to /ifs share for the Everyone account

By default, the /ifs root directory is configured as an SMB share in the System access zone. It is recommended that you
restrict the Everyone account of this share to read-only access.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.
2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select System.
3. Select the check box corresponding to the /ifs share and click View/Edit.
The View SMB Share Details dialog box appears.
4. Click Edit SMB Share.
The Edit SMB Share Details dialog box appears.
5. In the Users and Groups area, select the checkbox corresponding to the Everyone account, and click View/Edit.
The Edit Persona dialog box appears.
6. Select Specify Permission Level, and then select the Read check box. Clear the Full Control and
Read-Write check boxes if these options are selected.
7. Click Apply.

Configure anonymous access to a single SMB share

You can configure anonymous access to data stored on a single share through Guest user impersonation.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Users.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select the access zone that contains the share you want to allow anonymous access.
3. From the Providers drop-down list, select Local.
a. Click View/Edit for the Guest account.

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 The View User Details dialog box appears.
b. Click Edit User.
c. Select Enable the account, and then click Save Changes.
4. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.
5. Click View/Edit next to the share you to allow anonymous access.
6. Click Edit SMB Share.
7. Click Show Advanced Settings.
8. Locate the Impersonate Guest setting, and then click Use Custom.
The Impersonate Guest drop-down list appears.
9. Select Always in the Impersonate Guest list.
10. Click Save Changes.

Configure anonymous access to all SMB shares in an access zone

You can configure anonymous access to data stored in an access zone through Guest user impersonation.
1. Click Access > Membership & Roles > Users.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select the access zone that you want to allow anonymous access.
3. From the Providers drop-down list, select Local.
a. Click View/Edit for the Guest account.
The View User Details dialog box appears.
b. Click Edit User.
c. Select Enable the account, and then click Save Changes.
4. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > Default Share Settings.
5. From the Current Access Zone list, select the access zone that you want to allow anonymous access for.
6. Locate the Impersonate Guest setting, and then click Use Custom.
The Impersonate Guest drop-down list appears.
7. Select Always in the Impersonate Guest list.
8. Click Save Changes.

Add a user or group to an SMB share

For each SMB share, you can add share-level permissions for specific users and groups.
1. Click Protocols > Windows Sharing (SMB) > SMB Shares.
2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select the access zone that contains the share you want to add a user or
group to.
3. From the list of SMB shares, locate the share that you want to modify and then click View/Edit.
4. Click Edit SMB Share.
5. At the Users and Groups section, click Add a User or Group.
The Add Persona dialog box appears.
6. Click Select User.
The Select Persona dialog box appears.
7. You can locate the user or group through one of the following methods:
● Type the Username or Group Name you want to search for in the text field, and then click Search.
● Select the authentication provider that you want to search in the text field, and then click Search. Only providers that
are currently configured and enabled on the cluster are listed.
● Type the Username or Group Name and select an authentication provider and click Search.
8. If you selected Well-known SIDs, click Search.
9. In the search results, click the user, group, or SID that you want to add to the SMB share and then click Select.
10. By default, the access rights of the new account are set to Deny All. To enable a user or group to access the share,
follow these additional steps:
a. Next to the user or group account you added, click Edit.
b. Select Run as Root or select Specify Permission Level and then select one or more of the following permission levels:
Full Control, Read-Write, and Read.

182 File sharing

11. Click Add Persona.
12. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
SMB security

Configure multi-protocol home directory access

For users who will access this share through FTP or SSH, you can make sure that their home directory path is the same whether
they connect through SMB or they log in through FTP or SSH. This task may only be performed at the OneFS command-line
interface.
This command directs the SMB share to use the home directory template that is specified in the user's authentication provider.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
1. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
2. Run the following command, where <share> is the name of the SMB share and --path is the directory path of the home
directory template specified by the user's authentication provider:

isi smb shares modify <share> --path=""

Related concepts
SMB security
Mixed protocol environments

NFS security
OneFS provides an NFS server so you can share files on your cluster with NFS clients that adhere to the RFC1813 (NFSv3) and
RFC3530 (NFSv4) specifications.
NFS is disabled by default. To enable NFS, use the following command:

isi services nfs enable

In OneFS, the NFS server is fully optimized as a multithreaded service running in user space instead of the kernel. This
architecture load balances the NFS service across all nodes of the cluster, providing the stability and scalability necessary to
manage up to thousands of connections across multiple NFS clients.
NFS mounts run and refresh quickly, and the server constantly monitors fluctuating demands on NFS services and makes
adjustments across all nodes to ensure continuous, reliable performance. Using an integrated process scheduler, OneFS helps
ensure fair allocation of node resources so that no client can seize more than its fair share of NFS services.
The NFS server also supports access zones that are defined in OneFS, so that clients can access only the exports appropriate
to their zone. For example, if NFS exports are specified for Zone 2, only clients that are assigned to Zone 2 can access these
exports.
To simplify client connections, especially for exports with large path names, the NFS server also supports aliases, which are
shortcuts to mount points that clients can specify directly.
For secure NFS file sharing, OneFS supports NIS and LDAP authentication providers.

Related concepts
Managing the NFS service
Managing NFS exports

File sharing 183

NFS exports
You can manage individual NFS export rules that define mount-points (paths) available to NFS clients and how the server should
perform with these clients.
In OneFS, you can create, delete, list, view, modify, and reload NFS exports.
NFS export rules are zone-aware. Each export is associated with a zone, can only be mounted by clients on that zone, and can
only expose paths below the zone root. By default, any export command applies to the client's current zone.
Each rule must have at least one path (mount-point), and can include additional paths. You can also specify that all
subdirectories of the given path or paths are mountable. Otherwise, only the specified paths are exported, and child directories
are not mountable.
An export rule can specify a particular set of clients, enabling you to restrict access to certain mount-points or to apply a unique
set of options to these clients. If the rule does not specify any clients, then the rule applies to all clients that connect to the
server. If the rule does specify clients, then that rule is applied only to those clients.

NFS aliases
You can create and manage aliases as shortcuts for directory path names in OneFS. If those path names are defined as NFS
exports, NFS clients can specify the aliases as NFS mount points.
NFS aliases are designed to give functional parity with SMB share names within the context of NFS. Each alias maps a unique
name to a path on the file system. NFS clients can then use the alias name in place of the path when mounting.
Aliases must be formed as top-level Unix path names, having a single forward slash followed by name. For example, you could
create an alias named /q4 that maps to /ifs/data/finance/accounting/winter2015 (a path in OneFS). An NFS
client could mount that directory through either of:

mount cluster_ip:/q4

mount cluster_ip:/ifs/data/finance/accounting/winter2015

Aliases and exports are completely independent. You can create an alias without associating it with an NFS export. Similarly, an
NFS export does not require an alias.
Each alias must point to a valid path on the file system. While this path is absolute, it must point to a location beneath the zone
root (/ifs on the System zone). If the alias points to a path that does not exist on the file system, any client trying to mount
the alias would be denied in the same way as attempting to mount an invalid full pathname.
NFS aliases are zone-aware. By default, an alias applies to the client's current access zone. To change this, you can specify an
alternative access zone as part of creating or modifying an alias.
Each alias can only be used by clients on that zone, and can only apply to paths below the zone root. Alias names are unique per
zone, but the same name can be used in different zones—for example, /home.
When you create an alias in the web administration interface, the alias list displays the status of the alias. Similarly, using the
--check option of the isi nfs aliases command, you can check the status of an NFS alias (status can be: good, illegal
path, name conflict, not exported, or path not found).

NFS log files

OneFS writes log messages associated with NFS events to a set of files in /var/log.
With the log level option, you can now specify the detail at which log messages are output to log files. The following table
describes the log files associated with NFS.

Log file Description

nfs.log Primary NFS server functionality (v3, v4, mount)
rpc_lockd.log NFS v3 locking events through the NLM protocol
rpc_statd.log NFS v3 reboot detection through the NSM protocol
isi_netgroup_d.log Netgroup resolution and caching

184 File sharing

Managing the NFS service
You can enable or disable the NFS service and specify the NFS versions to support, including NFSv3 and NFSv4. NFS settings
are applied across all nodes in the cluster.
NOTE: NFSv4 can be enabled non-disruptively on a OneFS cluster, and it will run concurrently with NFSv3. Any existing
NFSv3 clients will not be impacted by enabling NFSv4.

Related concepts
NFS security

Configure NFS file sharing

You can enable or disable the NFS service, and set the lock protection level and security type. These settings are applied across
all node in the cluster. You can change the settings for individual NFS exports that you define.
1. Click Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > Global Settings.
2. Enable or disable the following settings:
● NFS Export Service
● NFSv3
● NFSv4
3. Click Reload in the Cached Export Configuration section to reload the cached NFS export settings.
The cached NFS export settings are reloaded to help ensure that changes to DNS or NIS are applied.
4. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
NFS security

Related references
NFS global settings
NFS export performance settings
NFS export client compatibility settings
NFS export behavior settings

Create a root-squashing rule for the default NFS export

By default, the NFS service implements a root-squashing rule for the default NFS export. This rule prevents root users on NFS
clients from exercising root privileges on the NFS server.
1. Click Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > NFS Exports.
2. Select the default export in the NFS Exports list, and click View/Edit.
3. In the Root User Mapping area, verify that the default settings are selected. If so, no changes are necessary and you can
go to step 7.
4. Click Edit Export.
5. Locate the Root User Mapping setting, and then click Use Default to reset to these values:

User: Map root users to user nobody

Primary Group: No primary group
Secondary Groups: No secondary groups

6. Click Save Changes.

7. Click Close.
With these settings, regardless of the users' credentials on the NFS client, they would not be able to gain root privileges on the
NFS server.

File sharing 185

NFS global settings
NFS global settings determine how the NFS service operates. You can modify these settings according to your organization's
needs.
The following table describes NFS global settings and their default values:

Setting Description
NFS Export Service Enables or disables the NFS service. This setting is enabled by
default.
NFSv3 Enables or disables support for NFSv3. This setting is enabled
by default.
NFSv4 Enables or disables support for NFSv4. This setting is disabled
by default.
Cached Export Configuration Enables you to reload cached NFS exports to help ensure that
any domain or network changes take effect immediately.

Related concepts
NFS security

Related tasks
Configure NFS file sharing

Managing NFS exports

You can create NFS exports, view and modify export settings, and delete exports that are no longer needed.
You configure the default export after enabling NFS.
NOTE: It is recommended that you configure your default export to limit access only to trusted clients, or to restrict access
completely. To help ensure that sensitive data is not compromised, avoid creating other exports in readily accessible or
visible points in the OneFS file hierarchy. Ensure that your exports can be protected by access zones or limited to specific
clients with either root, read-write, or read-only access, as appropriate.

Related concepts
NFS security

Create an NFS export

You can create NFS exports to share files in OneFS with UNIX-based clients.
The NFS service runs in user space and distributes the load across all nodes in the cluster. This enables the service to be
highly scalable and support thousands of exports. As a best practice, however, you should avoid creating a separate export for
each client on your network. It is more efficient to create fewer exports, and to use access zones and user mapping to control
access.
1. Click Protocols > UNIX sharing (NFS) > NFS exports.
2. Click Create export.
3. For the Directory paths setting, type or browse to the directory that you want to export.
You can add multiple directory paths by clicking Add another directory path for each additional path.
4. Optional: In the Description field, type a comment that describes the export.
5. Optional: Specify the NFS clients that are allowed to access the export.
You can specify NFS clients in any or all of the client fields, as described in the following table. A client can be identified by
host name, IPv4 or IPv6 address, subnet, or netgroup. IPv4 addresses mapped into the IPv6 address space are translated
and stored as IPv4 addresses to remove any possible ambiguities.

186 File sharing

 You can specify multiple clients in each field by typing one entry per line.
NOTE: If you do not specify any clients, all clients on the network are allowed access to the export. If you specify
clients in any of the rule fields, such as Always read-only clients, the applicable rule is only applied to those clients.
However, adding an entry to Root clients does not stop other clients from accessing the export.

If you add the same client to more than one list and the client is entered in the same format for each entry, the client is
normalized to a single list in the following order of priority:

● Root clients
● Always read-write clients
● Always read-only clients
● clients

Setting Description
Clients Specifies one or more clients to be allowed access to the export. Access level is controlled through export
permissions.
Always read- Specifies one or more clients to be allowed read/write access to the export regardless of the export's
write clients access-restriction setting. This is equivalent to adding a client to the Clients list with the Restrict access
to read-only setting cleared.
Always read- Specifies one or more clients to be allowed read-only access to the export regardless of the export's
only clients access-restriction setting. This is equivalent to adding a client to the Clients list with the Restrict access
to read-only setting selected.
root clients Specifies one or more clients to be mapped as root for the export. This setting enables the following client
to mount the export, present the root identity, and be mapped to root. Adding a client to this list does not
prevent other clients from mounting if clients, read-only clients, and read-write clients are unset.
6. Select the export permissions setting to use:
● Enable read-write acces
● Restrict actions to read-only.
7. Specify user and group mappings.
Select Use custom to limit access by mapping root users or all users to a specific user and group ID. For root squash, map
root users to the username nobody.
8. Locate the Security types setting. Set the security type to use. UNIX is the default setting.
Click Use custom to select one or more of the following security types:
● UNIX (system)
● Kerberos5
● Kerberos5 Integrity
● Kerberos5 Privacy
NOTE: The default security flavor (UNIX) relies upon having a trusted network. If you do not completely trust
everything on your network, then the best practice is to choose a Kerberos option. If the system does not support
Kerberos, it will not be fully protected because NFS without Kerberos trusts everything on the network and sends all
packets in cleartext. If you cannot use Kerberos, you should find another way to protect the Internet connection. At a
minimum, do the following:
● Limit root access to the cluster to trusted host IP addresses.
● Make sure that all new devices that you add to the network are trusted. Methods for ensuring trust include, but are
not limited to, the following:
○ Use an IPsec tunnel. This option is very secure because it authenticates the devices using secure keys.
○ Configure all of the switch ports to go inactive if they are physically disconnected. In addition, make sure that the
switch ports are MAC limited.

9. Specify file name limit. 255 B is the default setting.

Click Use custom to set your preferred file name limit.
10. Click Advanced settings to configure advanced NFS export settings.

File sharing 187

 Do not change the advanced settings unless it is necessary and you fully understand the consequences of these changes.
11. Click Create export.
The new NFS export is created and shown at the top of the NFS Exports list.

Related concepts
NFS security

Modify an NFS export

You can modify the settings for an existing NFS export.
CAUTION: Changing export settings may cause performance issues. Ensure you understand the potential impact
of any settings changes before saving any changes.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX sharing (NFS) > NFS exports.
2. In the NFS exports list, select the check box corresponding to the export you want to modify, and click View/Edit.
3. Edit the desired export settings.
4. Click Advanced settings to edit advanced export settings.
It is recommended that you do not change the advanced settings unless it is necessary and you fully understand the
consequences of these settings.
5. Click Save.
The settings are modified for the NFS export.

Related concepts
NFS security

Delete an NFS export

You can delete unneeded NFS exports. Any current NFS client connections to these exports become invalid.
NOTE: You can delete all the exports on a cluster at once. Click the Export ID/Paths check box at the top of the NFS
exports list, and then select Delete from the drop-down list to the right.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX sharing (NFS) > NFS exports.
2. In the NFS exports list, click the check box to the left of the export that you want to delete.
3. Click Delete.
4. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete to confirm the operation.

Related concepts
NFS security

Check NFS exports for errors

You can check for errors in NFS exports, such as conflicting export rules, invalid paths, and unresolvable hostnames and
netgroups. This task may be performed only through the OneFS command-line interface.
1. Establish an SSH connection to any node in the cluster.
2. Run the isi nfs exports check command.
In the following example output, no errors were found:

ID Message
----------
----------
Total: 0

In the following example output, export 1 contains a directory path that does not currently exist:

188 File sharing

 ID Message
-----------------------------------
1 '/ifs/test' does not exist
-----------------------------------
Total: 1

View and configure default NFS export settings

You can view and configure default NFS export settings. Changes to these settings apply to all new exports and any existing
exports that are using default values.
NOTE: Changes to default export settings affect all current and future NFS exports that use default settings. Incorrectly
changing these settings can negatively affect the availability of the NFS file sharing service. It is recommended that you
not change the default settings, particularly advanced settings, unless you have experience working with NFS. Instead, you
should change settings as needed for individual NFS exports as you create them.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > Export Settings.
Common NFS export settings are listed in the Export settings area: Root user mapping, Non root user mapping, Failed
user mapping, Security types, and File name limits. Modify the default settings that you want to apply to all new NFS
exports, or to existing exports that use any of the default values.
2. In the Advanced settings area, you can edit advanced settings.
It is recommended that you do not change advanced settings unless it is necessary and you fully understand the
consequences of the changes.
3. Click Save.

Related concepts
NFS security

Basic NFS export settings

The basic NFS export settings are global settings that apply to any new NFS exports that you create.
The basic NFS export settings are described in the following table.

Setting Default values

Root user mapping User: Map root users to user nobody
Primary Group: No primary group
Secondary Groups: No secondary groups
NOTE: The default settings result in a root squashing rule
whereby no user on the NFS client, even a root user, can
gain root privileges on the NFS server.

Non-root user mapping User mapping is disabled by default. It is recommended

that you specify this setting on a per-export basis, when
appropriate.
Failed user mapping User mapping is disabled by default. It is recommended
that you specify this setting on a per-export basis, when
appropriate.
Security types Available options include UNIX (system), the default
setting, Kerberos5, Kerberos5 Integrity, and
Kerberos5 Privacy.

File name limits The default file name limit is 255 B. You have an option to
customize the file name limit.

File sharing 189

NFS export performance settings
You can specify settings to control the performance of NFS exports.
The following table describes the performance category of settings for NFS exports:

Setting Description
Block Size The block size used to calculate block counts for NFSv3
FSSTAT and NFSv4 GETATTR requests. The default value is
8192 bytes.

Commit Asynchronous If set to yes, allows NFSv3 and NFSv4 COMMIT operations to
be asynchronous. The default value is No.

Directory Transfer Size The preferred directory read transfer size reported to NFSv3
and NFSv4 clients. The default value is 131072 bytes.

Read Transfer Max Size The maximum read transfer size reported to NFSv3 and
NFSv4 clients. The default value is 1048576 bytes.

Read Transfer Multiple The recommended read transfer size multiple reported to
NFSv3 and NFSv4 clients. The default value is 512 bytes.

Read Transfer Preferred Size The preferred read transfer size reported to NFSv3 and
NFSv4 clients. The default value is 131072 bytes.

Setattr Asynchronous If set to Yes, performs set attribute operations

asynchronously. The default value is No.

Write Datasync Action The action to perform for DATASYNC writes. The default
value is DATASYNC.

Write Datasync Reply The reply to send for DATASYNC writes. The default value is
DATASYNC.

Write Filesync Action The action to perform for FILESYNC writes. The default value
is FILESYNC.

Write Filesync Reply The reply to send for FILESYNC writes. The default value is
FILESYNC.

Write Transfer Max Size The maximum write transfer size reported to NFSv3 and
NFSv4 clients. The default value is 1048576 bytes.

Write Transfer Multiple The recommended write transfer size reported to NFSv3 and
NFSv4 clients. The default value is 512 bytes.

Write Transfer Preferred The preferred write transfer size reported to NFSv3 and
NFSv4 clients. The default value is 524288.

Write Unstable Action The action to perform for UNSTABLE writes. The default
value is UNSTABLE.

Write Unstable Reply The reply to send for UNSTABLE writes. The default value is
UNSTABLE.

Related concepts
NFS security

Related tasks
Configure NFS file sharing

190 File sharing

NFS export client compatibility settings
The NFS export client compatibility settings affect the customization of NFS exports.
These settings are described in the following table.

Setting Setting value

Max File Size Specifies the maximum file size to allow. This setting is
advisory in nature and is returned to the client in a reply to
an NFSv3 FSINFO or NFSv4 GETATTR request. The default
value is 9223372036854776000 bytes.

Readdirplus Enable Enables the use of NFSv3 readdirplus service whereby a client
can send a request and received extended information about
the directory and files in the export. The default is Yes.

Return 32 bit File IDs Specifies return 32-bit file IDs to the client. The default is No.

Related concepts
NFS security

Related tasks
Configure NFS file sharing

NFS export behavior settings

The NFS export behavior settings control whether NFS clients can perform certain functions on the NFS server, such as setting
the time.
The NFS export behavior settings are described in the following table.

Setting Description
Can Set Time When this setting is enabled, OneFS allows the NFS client to
set various time attributes on the NFS server. The default
value is Yes.

Encoding Overrides the general encoding settings the cluster has for
the export. The default value is DEFAULT.

Map Lookup UID Looks up incoming user identifiers (UIDs) in the local
authentication database. The default value is No.

Symlinks Informs the NFS client that the file system supports symbolic
link file types. The default value is Yes.

Time Delta Sets the server clock granularity. The default value is 1e-9
seconds (0.000000001 second).

Related concepts
NFS security

Related tasks
Configure NFS file sharing

File sharing 191

Managing NFS aliases
You can create NFS aliases to simplify exports that clients connect to. An NFS alias maps an absolute directory path to a simple
directory path.
For example, suppose you created an NFS export to /ifs/data/hq/home/archive/first-quarter/finance. You
could create the alias /finance1 to map to that directory path.
NFS aliases can be created in any access zone, including the System zone.

Create an NFS alias

You can create an NFS alias to map a long directory path to a simple pathname.
Aliases must be formed as a simple Unix-style directory path, for example, /home.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > NFS Aliases.
2. Click Create Alias.
3. In the Alias Name field, type a name for the alias.
The alias name must be formed as a simple UNIX-style path with one element, for example, /home.
4. In the Path field, type the full path that the alias is to be associated with, or click Browse to search for the path.
If you have set up access zones in OneFS, the full path must begin with the root of the current access zone.
5. Click Create Alias.
The name, status, and path of the new alias are shown at the top of the NFS Aliases list.

Modify an NFS alias

You can modify an NFS alias.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > NFS Aliases.
2. In the NFS Aliases list, locate the alias that you want to modify, and then click View/Edit.
3. In the View Alias Details dialog box, click Edit Alias.
4. In the Alias Name field, type a name for the alias.
The alias name must be formed as a simple UNIX-style path with one element, for example, /home.
5. In the Path field, type the full path that the alias is to be associated with, or click Browse to search for the path.
If you have set up access zones in OneFS, the full path must begin with the root of the current access zone.
6. Click Save Changes.
The View Alias Details dialog box is displayed, and a message indicates that the change succeeded.
7. Click Close.
The modified alias name, status, and path are shown in the NFS Aliases list.

Delete an NFS alias

You can delete an NFS alias.
If an NFS alias is mapped to an NFS export, deleting the alias can disconnect clients that used the alias to mount the export.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > NFS Aliases.
2. Select the check box corresponding to the alias that you intend to delete, and click More.
3. Click Delete.
The Confirm Delete dialog box appears.
4. Click Delete.
The alias is removed from the NFS Aliases list.

192 File sharing

List NFS aliases
You can view a list of NFS aliases that have already been defined for a particular zone. Aliases in the system zone are listed by
default.
● Select Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > NFS Aliases.
The NFS Aliases list appears, displaying all aliases for the current access zone. The names, states, and paths for all aliases
are shown.

View an NFS alias

You can view the settings of an NFS alias.
1. Select Protocols > UNIX Sharing (NFS) > NFS Aliases.
2. Select the check box corresponding to the alias that you want to view, and click View/Edit.
The View Alias Details dialog box displays the settings associated with the alias.
3. When you are done viewing the alias, click Close.

FTP
OneFS includes a secure FTP service that is called Very Secure FTP Daemon (VSFTPD), that you can configure for standard
FTP and FTPS file transfers.
FTP is disabled by default, as users should be using secure FTP (FTPs) or HTTPs for file transfers.

Related tasks
Enable and configure FTP file sharing

Enable and configure FTP file sharing

You can set the FTP service to allow any node in the cluster to respond to FTP requests through a standard user account.
You can enable the transfer of files between remote FTP servers and enable anonymous FTP service on the root by creating a
local user named "anonymous" or "ftp".
When configuring FTP access, ensure that the specified FTP root is the home directory of the user who logs in. For example,
the FTP root for local user jsmith should be ifs/home/jsmith.
1. Click Protocols > FTP Settings.
2. In the Service area, select Enable FTP service.
3. In the Settings area, select one or more of the following options:

Option Description
Enable anonymous Allow users with "anonymous" or "ftp" as the user name to access files and directories without
access requiring authentication. This setting is disabled by default.
Enable local access Allow local users to access files and directories with their local user name and password, allowing
them to upload files directly through the file system. This setting is enabled by default.
Enable server-to- Allow files to be transferred between two remote FTP servers. This setting is disabled by default.
server transfers
4. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
FTP

File sharing 193

HTTP and HTTPS security
OneFS includes a configurable Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) service. Use HTTP to request files that are stored on the
cluster and to interact with the web administration interface.
HTTP and HTTPS are disabled by default. To enable them, use the following commands:

isi http settings modify --service=enabled

isi http settings modify --https=true

NOTE: Set the file and directory permissions to allow HTTP or HTTPS to access them.

OneFS supports both HTTP and its secure variant, HTTPS. Each node in the cluster runs an instance of the Apache HTTP
Server to provide HTTP access. You can configure the HTTP service to run in different modes.
Both HTTP and HTTPS are supported for file transfer, but only HTTPS is supported for API calls. The HTTPS-only requirement
includes the web administration interface. OneFS supports a form of the web-based DAV (WebDAV) protocol that enables users
to modify and manage files on remote web servers. OneFS performs distributed authoring, but does not support versioning and
does not perform security checks. You can enable DAV in the web administration interface.

Related tasks
Enable and configure HTTP

Enable and configure HTTP

You can configure HTTP and DAV to enable users to edit and manage files collaboratively across remote web servers. You can
only perform this task through the OneFS web administration interface.
1. Click Protocols > HTTP Settings.
2. In the Service area, select one of the following settings:

Option Description
Enable HTTP Allows HTTP access for cluster administration and browsing content on the cluster.
Disable HTTP and Allows only administrative access to the web administration interface. This is the default
redirect to the OneFS setting.
Web Administration
interface
Disable HTTP Closes the HTTP port that is used for file access. Users can continue to access the web
administration interface by specifying the port number in the URL. The default port is 8080.

3. In the Protocol Settings area, in the Document root directory field, type a path name or click Browse to browse to an
existing directory in /ifs.
NOTE: The HTTP server runs as the daemon user and group. To correctly enforce access controls, you must grant
the daemon user or group read access to all files under the document root, and allow the HTTP server to traverse the
document root.

4. In the Authentication Settings area, from the HTTP Authentication list, select an authentication setting:

Option Description
Off Disables HTTP authentication. This is the default setting.
Basic Authentication Only Enables HTTP basic authentication. User credentials are sent in cleartext.
Integrated Authentication Enables HTTP authentication using Kerberos.
Only
Integrated and Basic Enables both basic and integrated authentication.
Authentication

194 File sharing

 Option Description
Basic Authentication with Enables HTTP basic authentication and enables the Apache web server to perform access
Access Controls checks.
Integrated Authentication Enables HTTP integrated authentication using Kerberos, and enables the Apache web server
with Access Controls to perform access checks.
Integrated and Basic Enables HTTP basic authentication and integrated authentication, and enables the Apache
Authentication with Access web server to perform access checks.
Controls

5. To allow multiple users to manage and modify files collaboratively across remote web servers, select Enable WebDAV.
6. Select Enable access logging.
7. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
HTTP and HTTPS security

File sharing 195

 11
File filtering
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• File filtering in an access zone
• Enable and configure file filtering in an access zone
• Modify file filtering settings in an access zone
• View file filtering settings

File filtering in an access zone

In an access zone, you can use file filtering to allow or deny file writes based on file type.
If some file types might cause throughput issues, security problems, storage clutter, or productivity disruptions on your cluster,
or if your organizations must adhere to specific file policies, you can restrict writes to specified file types or only allow writes to
a specified list of file types. When you enable file filtering in an access zone, OneFS applies file filtering rules only to files in that
access zone.
● If you choose to deny file writes, you can specify file types by extension that are not allowed to be written. OneFS permits all
other file types to be written.
● If you choose to allow file writes, you can specify file types by extension that are allowed to be written. OneFS denies all
other file types to be written.
OneFS does not take into consideration which file sharing protocol was used to connect to the access zone when applying file
filtering rules; however, you can apply additional file filtering at the SMB share level. See "SMB file filtering" in the File sharing
chapter of this guide.

Enable and configure file filtering in an access zone

You can enable file filtering per access zone and specify which file types users are denied or allowed write access to within the
access zone.
1. Click Access > File Filter.
2. From the Current Access Zone list, select the access zone that you want to apply file filtering to.
3. Select Enable file filters.
4. From the File Extensions list, select one of the following filtering methods:
● Deny writes for list of file extensions
● Allow writes for list of file extensions
5. Click Add file extensions.
The Add File Extensions dialog box appears.
6. In the File Extensions field, type the file name extension of the file type you want to filter.
The extension must start with a "." such as .txt.
7. Optional: Click Add another file extension to enter multiple extensions.
8. Click Add Extensions.
9. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
File filtering in an access zone

196 File filtering

Modify file filtering settings in an access zone
You can modify file filtering settings by changing the filtering method or editing file extensions.
1. Click Access > File Filter.
2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select the access zone in which you want to modify.
3. To disable file filtering in the access zone, clear the Enable file filters check box.
4. To change the file filtering method, select one of the following filtering methods from the File Extensions list:
● Deny writes for list of file extensions
● Allow writes for list of file extensions
5. To add a file name extension, click Add file extensions, type the file name extension, and then click Add Extensions.
6. To remove a file name extension, click the Remove Filter button next to the extension you would like to delete.
7. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
File filtering in an access zone

View file filtering settings

You can view file filtering settings in an access zone.
1. Click Access > File Filter.
2. From the Current Access Zone drop-down list, select the access zone in which you want to modify.
The settings for the selected access zone are displayed on the File Filter Settings tab.

File filtering 197

 12
Auditing
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Auditing overview
• Syslog
• Syslog forwarding and TLS
• OpenBSM service
• Protocol audit events
• Audit log purging
• Managing audit settings
• Integrating with the Common Event Enabler
• Tracking the delivery of protocol audit events

Auditing overview
You can enable auditing for configuration changes, protocol activity, and high-level system platform events on the cluster.
Auditing can detect many potential sources of data loss, including fraudulent activities, inappropriate entitlements, and
unauthorized access attempts. Customers in financial services, health care, life sciences, media and entertainment, and
governmental agencies must meet stringent regulatory requirements that protect against these sources of data loss.
All audit data is stored and protected in the cluster file system. You can optionally configure forwarding of auditing logs to
remote syslog servers. You can optionally configure encrypted forwarding with TLS. Each audit topic type can be configured
separately regarding remote servers, whether to use TLS forwarding, and whether to use one- or two-way TLS verification.
To configure auditing, you must either be a root user or you must be assigned to an administrative role that includes auditing
privileges (ISI_PRIV_AUDIT).
OneFS internally manages the audit log files. Some configurable options related to log file management are retention period and
whether to implement automatic purging.
The audit topic types are:
● Configuration change auditing
● Protocol activity auditing
● System auditing

Configuration change auditing

Configuration change auditing tracks and records all configuration events from the OneFS platform API. The process audits the
command-line interface (CLI), web administration interface, and OneFS APIs.
Configuration change logs are populated in the config topic in the audit back-end store under /ifs/.ifsvar/audit/
logs/node<nnn>/config. The logs automatically roll over to a new file after the size reaches 1 GB.
You can enable configuration auditing using the Web UI or the CLI. If you enable configuration auditing, no additional
configuration is required. You can optionally configure syslog forwarding using the CLI.

Protocol auditing
Protocol auditing tracks and stores activity through SMB, NFS, S3, and HDFS protocol connections. You can enable and
configure protocol auditing for one or more access zones in a cluster. If you enable protocol auditing for an access zone,
file-access events through the SMB, NFS, S3, and HDFS protocols are recorded in the protocol audit topic directories. You can

198 Auditing
specify which events to log in each access zone. For example, you can audit the default set of protocol events in the System
access zone but audit only successful attempts to delete files in a different access zone.
The audit events are logged on the individual nodes where the SMB, NFS, S3, or HDFS client initiated the activity. The events
are stored in a binary file under /ifs/.ifsvar/audit/logs/node<nnn>/<protocol>. The logs automatically roll over to
a new file after the size reaches 1 GB. The logs are compressed to reduce space.
The protocol audit logs are consumable by auditing applications that support the Common Event Enabler (CEE).
You can enable protocol auditing using the Web UI or CLI. To configure syslog forwarding, use the CLI.

System auditing
System auditing tracks system platform events and events that are related to account management. Two services manage
system auditing. Both services log events per node. Both services manage their own log rotations and rollovers. The two system
auditing services are syslogd and OpenBSM.
● The syslogd service collects logs that are generated by other applications and stores them in /var/log/audit/
<audit files>. The syslogd service is always enabled and cannot be disabled. It collects audit logs from the following
application logs.

Application log Description

isi_pw.log Logs account changes that were made with the isi_pw command.

pw.log Logs account changes that were made with the pw command.

auth.log Logs authentication events.

httpd.log Logs access to the HTTP server.

● The OpenBSM service is predefined to log high-level cluster events. This service is disabled by default. If enabled, it collects
the following events and stores them in /var/audit/<audit files>.
○ Module loads and unloads
○ System boot up and reboots
○ User logins and logouts
○ System shutdowns and power off
○ OpenSSH logins
Use the CLI to configure system auditing. You can enable and disable the OpenBSM service. You can configure forwarding of all
system auditing logs from both services to remote syslog servers.

Syslog
The isi_audit_syslog service is the OneFS syslog service that handles forwarding of audit logs to remote servers.
In OneFS 9.5 and later, the isi_audit_syslog service forwards audit logs directly to remote syslog servers when
syslog forwarding is enabled. The transmission from isi_audit_syslog to remote servers is reliable and secure. The
isi_audit_syslog service handles forwarding for all audit logs, including configuration change auditing, protocol activity
auditing, and all system auditing.

Syslog forwarding and TLS

You can configure forwarding of audit logs to remote syslog servers. You can enable TLS for syslog forwarding.
For the protocol activity audit topic, you can also configure forwarding to a Dell Common Event Enabler (CEE) server. For
information about forwarding audit logs to a CEE server, see Integrating with the Common Event Enabler.
To configure forwarding to remote syslog servers, you must use the CLI. Configuration includes:
● Enabling and disabling remote forwarding
● Specifying the remote syslog servers
● Enabling or disabling encryption (TLS) for the forwarding operations
● Choosing between one- or two-way authentication for TLS communications

Auditing 199
These settings are configured separately for each audit topic. For example, you can enable forwarding of configuration change
auditing while not forwarding the other audit topics. You can configure separate remote servers for each of the audit topics,
and you can configure TLS separately for each audit topic. To view the current configuration for all the audit settings, use isi
audit settings global view.
The OneFS audit system persists all audit data to disk. The audit syslog forwarder ensures that all audit events are processed
for forwarding when remote forwarding is enabled. Only TLS ensures delivery to the remote servers.
Both TLS or non-TLS methods distribute the audit event in the same way. The audit syslog forwarder sends all audit events to
all configured remote syslog servers. Use the following table to determine whether to enable TLS.

Table 12. Comparison of remote forwarding with TLS enabled and disabled
Attribute TLS enabled TLS disabled
Delivery TLS UDP
method
Reliability Every event is guaranteed for successful delivery to at least This method is unreliable. The audit
one remote syslog server. syslog forwarder does not implement UDP
retransmission.
If configuration errors or degraded network conditions exist,
audit events may be dropped for a given remote server. If
all syslog servers are down, the entire forwarding process is
blocked until one server recovers.

Authentication One- or two-way certificate verification is performed. No certificate verification is performed.

● One-way verification—This option is the default
verification method when TLS is enabled. The root
certificate for the CA that is embedded in OneFS is used
to verify the syslog server during the TLS handshake. No
additional configuration is required.
● Two-way verification—This option requires that both
server and client certificates are verified. You must import
the client certificate into OneFS for this case. Use the isi
audit certificates syslog commands.

OpenBSM service
The OpenBSM service is disabled by default. Administrators can enable and disable this service using the CLI.

OneFS uses the OpenBSM framework and service. The log files use the OpenBSM event log format. Log rotation is self-
managed. The daemon writes run information in /var/log/messages.
OpenBSM log files are in /var/audit/. You can view the logs with the praudit utility:

praudit-x /var/audit/<audit file>

Protocol audit events

By default, audited access zones track only certain events on the PowerScale cluster, including successful and failed attempts
to access files and directories.
When protocol auditing is enabled, OneFS audit tracks all changes that are made to the files and directories in SMB shares, NFS
exports, HDFS data, and S3 buckets.
The default tracked events are create, close, delete, rename, and set_security.
The names of generated events are loosely based on the Windows I/O request packet (IRP) model in which all operations begin
with a create event to obtain a file handle. A create event is required before all I/O operations, including the following: close,
create, delete, get_security, read, rename, set_security, and write. A close event marks when the client is finished with the file
handle that was produced by a create event.

200 Auditing
 NOTE: For the NFS, S3, and HDFS protocols, the rename and delete events might not be enclosed with the create and
close events.
These internally stored events are translated to events that are forwarded through the CEE to the auditing application. The CEE
export facilities on OneFS perform this mapping. The CEE can be used to connect to any third party application that supports
the CEE.

NOTE: The CEE does not support forwarding HDFS or S3 protocol events to a third-party application.

Different SMB, NFS, S3, and HDFS clients issue different requests, and one particular version of a platform such as Windows
or Mac OS X using SMB might differ from another. Similarly, different versions of an application such as Microsoft Word or
Windows Explorer might make different protocol requests. For example, a client with a Windows Explorer window open might
generate many events if an automatic or manual refresh of that window occurs. Applications issue requests with the logged-in
user's credentials, but you should not assume that all requests are purposeful user actions.

Related tasks
Enable protocol access auditing
Configure protocol event filters

Supported audit tools

You can configure OneFS to send protocol auditing logs to servers that support the Common Event Enabler (CEE).
CEE has been tested and verified to work on several third-party software vendors.
NOTE: We recommend that you install and configure third-party auditing applications before you enable the OneFS auditing
feature. Otherwise, all the events that are logged are forwarded to the auditing application, and a large backlog causes a
delay in receiving the most current events.

Delivering protocol audit events to multiple CEE servers

OneFS supports concurrent delivery of protocol audit events to multiple CEE servers running the CEE service.
You can establish up to 20 HTTP 1.1 connections across a subset of CEE servers. Each node in a PowerScale cluster can select
up to five CEE servers for delivery. The CEE servers are shared in a global configuration and are configured with OneFS by
adding the URI of each server to the OneFS configuration.
After configuring the CEE servers, a node in a PowerScale cluster automatically selects the CEE servers from a sorted list of
CEE URIs. The servers are selected starting from the node's logical node number offset within the sorted list. When a CEE
server is unavailable, the next available server is selected in the sorted order. All the connections are evenly distributed between
the selected servers. When a node is moved because a CEE server was previously unavailable, checks are made every 15
minutes for the availability of the CEE server. The node is moved back as soon as the CEE Server is available.
Follow some of these best practices before configuring the CEE servers:
● We recommend that you provide only one CEE server per node. You can use extra CEE servers beyond the PowerScale
cluster size only when the selected CEE server goes offline.
NOTE: In a global configuration, there should be one CEE server per node.
● Configure the CEE server and enable protocol auditing at the same time. If not, a backlog of events might accumulate
causing stale delivery for a period of time.
You can either receive a global view of the progress of delivery of the protocol audit events or you can receive a logical node
number view of the progress by running the isi audit progress view command.

Supported event types for protocol auditing

You can view or modify the event types that are audited in an access zone.

Event name Example protocol activity Audited by default Can be exported Cannot be exported
through CEE through CEE
create ● Create a file or directory X X

Auditing 201
Event name Example protocol activity Audited by default Can be exported Cannot be exported
through CEE through CEE
● Open a file, directory, or
share
● Mount a share
● Delete a file
NOTE: While the SMB
protocol allows you
to set a file for
deletion with the create
operation, you must
enable the delete event
in order for the auditing
tool to log the event.

close ● Close a directory X X

● Close a modified or
unmodified file
rename Rename a file or directory X X
delete Delete a file or directory X X
set_security Attempt to modify file or X X
directory permissions
read The first read request on an X
open file handle
write The first write request on an X
open file handle
get_security The client reads security X
information for an open file
handle
logon SMB session create request by X
a client
logoff SMB session logoff X
tree_connect SMB first attempt to access a X
share

Audit log purging

OneFS supports audit log purging features on the cluster.
The audit system writes audit logs in the /ifs/.ifsvar/audit/logs directory. After an audit log file reaches 1G, a new file
is created, and the old file is compressed. As time goes on, the audit log file exhausts all space on the file system.
There are two ways to delete audit logs. Both methods are performed using the command-line interface.
In the first method, automatic deletion, the audit logs are deleted automatically after passing a specified retention period.
The retention period works like a window. Any audit log out of the window is deleted. For example, if you configure the retention
period as 90 days, and the current date is 2019-5-30, any log before 2019-3-1 is deleted. From 2019-3-1 to 2019-5-30 is a 90
day window. The granularity of deleting is by file. Although audit log purging uses day to determine the retention period, purging
removes a file when the last audit event in the file is older than the retention period.
The second purging method is manual deletion. You can specify to delete audit logs before a specified time.
Both automatic and manual deletion apply to configuration change and protocol activity logs.

NOTE: The audit log purging features do not work on the system audit logs.

202 Auditing
Managing audit settings
You can enable and disable audit services and manage audit files. You can integrate auditing with the Common Event Enabler.

Enable configuration change auditing

OneFS can audit configuration change events on the PowerScale cluster. All configuration events that are handled by the API
including writes, modifications, and deletions are tracked and recorded in the config audit topic directories. When you enable or
disable configuration change auditing, no additional configuration is required.
Configuration change logs are populated in the config topic in the audit back-end store under /ifs/.ifsvar/audit/logs/
node<nnn>/config.

NOTE: Configuration events are not forwarded to the Common Event Enabler (CEE).

1. Click Cluster Management > Auditing.

2. In the Settings area, select the Enable Configuration Change Auditing check box.
3. Click Save Changes.
You can enable forwarding of configuration changes to syslog by running the isi audit settings global modify
command with the --config-syslog-enabled option. This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.

Related tasks
Forward configuration changes to syslog

Forward configuration changes to syslog

You can enable or disable forwarding of configuration changes on the PowerScale cluster to syslog. The forwarded configuration
changes are saved to the remote syslog servers. Events are no longer saved locally. This procedure is available only through the
command-line interface.
Forwarding is not enabled by default when configuration change auditing is enabled. To enable forwarding of configuration
changes to syslog, you must first enable system configuration auditing on the cluster.
1. Open an SSH connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi audit settings global modify command with the --config-syslog-enabled option to enable
or disable forwarding of configuration changes.
The following command enables forwarding of configuration changes to syslog:

isi audit settings global modify --config-syslog-enabled=yes \

--config-syslog-servers=<ip>:<port>

The following command disables forwarding of configuration changes to syslog:

isi audit settings global modify --config-syslog-enabled=no

Related concepts
Syslog
Syslog forwarding and TLS

Enable protocol access auditing

You can audit SMB, NFS, and HDFS protocol access on a per-access zone basis and optionally forward the generated events to
the Common Event Enabler (CEE) for export to third-party products.
NOTE: Because each audited event consumes system resources, we recommend that you only configure zones for events
that are needed by your auditing application. In addition, we recommend that you install and configure third-party auditing

Auditing 203
 applications before you enable the OneFS auditing feature. Otherwise, the large backlog performed by this feature may
cause results to not be updated for a considerable amount of time.
1. Click Cluster Management > Auditing.
2. In the Settings area, select the Enable Protocol Access Auditing checkbox.
3. In the Audited Zones area, click Add Zones.
4. In the Select Access Zones dialog box, select the check box for one or more access zones, and then click Add Zones.
5. Optional: In the Event Forwarding area, specify one or more CEE servers to forward logged events to.
a. In the CEE Server URIs field, type the URI of each CEE server in the CEE server pool.
The OneFS CEE export service uses round-robin load balancing when exporting events to multiple CEE servers. Valid
URIs start with http:// and include the port number and path to the CEE server if necessary—for example, http://
example.com:12228/cee.
b. In the Storage Cluster Name field, specify the name of the storage cluster to use when forwarding protocol events.
This name value is typically the SmartConnect zone name, but in cases where SmartConnect is not implemented, the
value must match the hostname of the cluster as the third-party application recognizes it. If the field is left blank,
events from each node are filled with the node name (clustername + lnn). This setting is required only if needed by your
third-party audit application.
NOTE: Although this step is optional, be aware that a backlog of events will accumulate regardless of whether CEE
servers have been configured. When configured, CEE forwarding begins with the oldest events in the backlog and
moves toward newest events in a first-in-first-out sequence.

6. Click Save Changes.

The following protocol events are collected for audited access zones by default: create, close, delete, rename, and
set_security. You can modify the set of events that are audited in an access zone by running the isi audit settings
modify command in the command-line interface. Because each audited event consumes system resources, it is recommended
that you only configure zones for events that are needed by your auditing application.
You can modify the types of protocol access events to be audited by running the isi audit settings modify command.
You can also enable forwarding of protocol access events to syslog by running the isi audit settings modify command
with the --syslog-forwarding-enabled option. These procedures are available only through the command-line interface.

Related concepts
Protocol audit events

Related tasks
Forward protocol access events to syslog

Forward protocol access events to syslog

You can enable or disable forwarding of audited protocol access events to syslog in each access zone. Forwarding is not enabled
by default when protocol access auditing is enabled. This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
To enable forwarding of protocol access events in an access zone, you must first enable protocol access auditing in the access
zone.
The --audit-success and --audit-failure options define the event types that are audited, and the --syslog-
audit-events option defines the event types that are forwarded to the remote syslog servers. Only the audited event types
are eligible for forwarding to the remote syslog server.
1. Open an SSH connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi audit settings modify command with the --syslog-forwarding-enabled option to enable or
disable audit syslog.
The following command enables forwarding of the audited protocol access events in the zone3 access zone and specifies
that the only event types forwarded are close, create, and delete events:

isi audit settings modify --syslog-forwarding-enabled=yes \

--config-syslog-servers=<ip>:<port> --syslog-audit-events=close,create,delete --
zone=zone3

204 Auditing
 The following command disables forwarding of audited protocol access events from the zone3 access zone:

isi audit settings modify --syslog-forwarding-enabled=no --zone=zone3

Related concepts
Syslog
Syslog forwarding and TLS

Configure protocol audited zones

Only the protocol audit events within an audited zone are captured and sent to the CEE server. Therefore, you must configure a
protocol audited zone to send audit events.
1. Open a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi audit settings global modify command with the --audited-zones option to configure protocol
audited zones.
The following command configures HomeDirectory and Misc as the protocol audited zones:

isi audit settings global modify --audited-zones=HomeDirectory,Misc

Configure protocol event filters

You can filter the types of protocol access events to be audited in an access zone. You can create filters for successful events
and failed events. The following protocol events are collected for audited access zones by default: create, delete, rename, close,
and set_security. This procedure is available only through the command-line interface.
To create protocol event filters, you should first enable protocol access auditing in the access zone.
1. Open a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi audit settings modify command
The following command creates a filter that audits the failure of create, close, and delete events in the zone3 access zone:

isi audit settings modify --audit-failure=create,close,delete --zone=zone3

The following command creates a filter that audits the success of create, close, and delete events in the zone5 access zone:

isi audit settings modify --audit-success=create,close,delete --zone=zone5

Related references
Supported event types for protocol auditing

Enable system auditing and forwarding

The syslogd collected audit events are always enabled and cannot be disabled. The OpenBSM auditing is disabled by default
and you can enable or disable it. Both types of system auditing are available for syslog forwarding.
1. Open an SSH connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Enable system auditing by OpenBSM.

isi audit settings global modify --system-auditing-enabled=yes

3. Optionally enable syslog forwarding for system events (both the OpenBSM and syslogd collected events).

isi audit settings global modify --system-syslog-enabled=yes

Auditing 205
 To stop forwarding of events logged by OpenBSM, use the following command:

isi audit settings global modify --system-syslog-enabled=no

Import certificate for TLS syslog forwarding

Import client-side certificates for two-way authentication for encrypted syslog forwarding.
TLS syslog forwarding uses the embedded OneFS CA root certificates for server-side authentication during the TLS handshake.
For two-way authentication, you must import the client certificates into OneFS. If the customer uses a common CA for issuing
TLS certificates, OneFS may already trust the root certificate for the client certificates. Otherwise, import an accompanying
new root certificate in addition to the client certificate and key files. The following steps show how to import first the root
certificate and then the certificate and key files.
1. Copy the root certificate in a known location in /ifs.
2. Import this root certificate into the OneFS root certificate database using the following command.

isi certificate authority import /ifs/root_cert.pem

3. Verify that the root certificate was successfully imported.

4. For security, delete the root certificate from /ifs after it is successfully imported.
5. Copy the certificate and the certificate key files into the OneFS file system. The files can be in PEM, DER, or PCKS#12
format.
6. Import the certificates and key file into the OneFS certificate store.

isi audit certificates syslog import /ifs/certs/mycertificate.pem /ifs/certs/certkey/

mycertificatekey.pem \
--name config-change-audits

The system assigns an id to the certificate. It stores the certificate and the key file in the OneFS certificate store.
7. View the certificate information.

isi audit certificates syslog view config-change-audits

The system assigned ID, status, and expiration date are displayed.

8. For security reasons, delete the key file from the OneFS file system. You may also delete the certificate file.

Set the audit hostname

You can optionally set the audit hostname for some of the third-party auditing applications that require a unified hostname. If
you do not set a hostname for these applications, each node in a PowerScale cluster sends its hostname as the server name to
the CEE server. Otherwise, the configured audit hostname is used as the global server name.
1. Open a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi audit settings global modify command with the --hostname option to set the audit hostname.
The following command sets mycluster as the audit hostname:

isi audit settings global modify --hostname=mycluster

View audit settings

You can view current audit settings.
1. Open a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.

206 Auditing
2. View all audit settings.

isi audit settings global view

The screen shows the current settings for configuration auditing, protocol auditing, and system auditing. It includes the
settings for forwarding audit logs to remote syslog servers.

isi audit settings global view

Protocol Auditing Enabled: Yes
Audited Zones: System, zoneA
CEE Server URIs: http://example.com:12228/cee
Hostname: mycluster
Config Auditing Enabled: Yes
Config Syslog Enabled: Yes
Config Syslog Servers: -
Config Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Config Syslog Certificate ID:
Protocol Syslog Servers: -
Protocol Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Protocol Syslog Certificate ID:
System Syslog Enabled: No
System Syslog Servers: -
System Syslog TLS Enabled: No
System Syslog Certificate ID:
Auto Purging Enabled: No
Retention Period: 180
System Auditing Enabled: No

Automatic deletion
The audit logs are deleted on its own from the command-line interface.
The automatic deletion runs periodically (once every hour) . It iterates over the audit directories and compares the date of the
file to the current date to determine if it should be deleted. If the file passes the retention period, it gets deleted. The default
retention period value is 180 days. The automatic deletion function is disabled by default. If you enable automatic purging,
deletion is triggered immediately. When automatic purging is enabled and you modify the retention period, deletion occurs
immediately. You can check the current audit settings using the isi audit settings global view command.

Enable automatic purging

You can enable automatic purging of audit log files.
1. Optional: To enable automatic purging, run the following command:

isi audit settings global modify --auto-purging-enabled=yes

The following message appears:

You are enabling the automatic log purging.

Automatic log purging will run in background to delete audit log files.
Please check the retention period before enabling automatic log purging.
Are you sure you want to do this?? (yes/[no])

2. Enter "yes."
The automatic purging feature is enabled.
3. You can check if the automatic purging feature is enabled using the isi audit settings global view command.

isi audit settings global view

Protocol Auditing Enabled: No
Audited Zones: -
CEE Server URIs: -
Hostname:
Config Auditing Enabled: No
Config Syslog Enabled: No
Config Syslog Servers: -

Auditing 207
 Config Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Config Syslog Certificate ID:
Protocol Syslog Servers: -
Protocol Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Protocol Syslog Certificate ID:
System Syslog Enabled: No
System Syslog Servers: -
System Syslog TLS Enabled: No
System Syslog Certificate ID:
Auto Purging Enabled: No
Retention Period: 180
System Auditing Enabled: No

Disable automatic purging

You can disable automatic purging of audit log files.
1. Optional: To disable automatic purging, run the following command:

isi audit settings global modify --auto-purging-enabled=no

The automatic purging feature is disabled.

2. You can check if the automatic purging feature is disabled using the isi audit settings global view command.

Protocol Auditing Enabled: No

Audited Zones: -
CEE Server URIs: -
Hostname:
Config Auditing Enabled: No
Config Syslog Enabled: No
Config Syslog Servers: -
Config Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Config Syslog Certificate ID:
Protocol Syslog Servers: -
Protocol Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Protocol Syslog Certificate ID:
System Syslog Enabled: No
System Syslog Servers: -
System Syslog TLS Enabled: No
System Syslog Certificate ID:
Auto Purging Enabled: No
Retention Period: 180
System Auditing Enabled: No

Modify retention period

At any time, you can modify the retention period value.
1. Optional: To modify the retention period value, run the following command:

isi audit settings global modify --retention-period=50

The retention period is now changed to 50 days.

NOTE: The default retention value is 180 days.
2. You can check if the retention period has changed from 180 to 50 days using the isi audit settings global view
command.

isi audit settings global view

Protocol Auditing Enabled: No
Audited Zones: -
CEE Server URIs: -
Hostname:
Config Auditing Enabled: No

208 Auditing
 Config Syslog Enabled: No
Config Syslog Servers: -
Config Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Config Syslog Certificate ID:
Protocol Syslog Servers: -
Protocol Syslog TLS Enabled: No
Protocol Syslog Certificate ID:
System Syslog Enabled: No
System Syslog Servers: -
System Syslog TLS Enabled: No
System Syslog Certificate ID:
Auto Purging Enabled: No
Retention Period: 180
System Auditing Enabled: No

Manual deletion
You can delete audit logs manually from the command-line interface.
By using this method, you can delete audit logs before a certain day forcibly. There is no way to delete audit logs for a time
span. The deletion deletes the audit logs of all the nodes present on the cluster. The deletion runs in background, and you can
only run one instance of manual deletion at one time. If a manual deletion task is running, any other deletion request will be
rejected.

Delete audit logs manually

You can delete the audit logs manually for a specified time period.
1. Optional: To delete audit logs manually, run the isi audit logs delete --before=<date> command:

isi audit logs delete --before=2019-11-1

The following message appears:

You are going to delete the audit logs before 2019-11-01.

Are you sure you want to do this?? (yes/[no]):

2. Enter "yes."
The deletion request is triggered, and the following message appears:

The purging request has been triggered.

`isi audit logs check` can be used to monitor the process.

Check status of manual deletion

You can check the status of the manual deletion.
Optional: To check if the audit logs for the specified time period is deleted, run the isi audit logs check command.
The deletion is successful, and the following message appears:

Purging Status:
Using Before Value: 2019-11-01
Currently Manual Purging Status: COMPLETED

NOTE: If there are some audit logs that cannot be deleted, the output displays the reason.

Auditing 209
Integrating with the Common Event Enabler
OneFS integration with the Common Event Enabler (CEE) enables third-party auditing applications to collect and analyze
protocol auditing logs.
OneFS supports the Common Event Publishing Agent (CEPA) component of CEE for Windows. For integration with OneFS, you
must install and configure CEE for Windows on a supported Windows client.
NOTE: We recommend that you install and configure third-party auditing applications before you enable the OneFS auditing
feature. Otherwise, the large backlog performed by this feature may cause results to not be up-to-date for a considerable
time.

Related references
Supported audit tools

Install CEE for Windows

To integrate CEE with OneFS, you must first install CEE on a computer that is running the Windows operating system.
Be prepared to extract files from the .iso file, as described in the following steps. If you are not familiar with the process,
consider choosing one of the following methods:
1. Install WinRAR or another suitable archival program that can open .iso files as an archive, and copy the files.
2. Burn the image to a CD-ROM, and then copy the files.
3. Install SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive, which allows you to mount an ISO image as a drive that you can copy files from.

NOTE: You should install a minimum of two servers. We recommend that you install CEE 6.6.0 or later.

1. Download the CEE framework software from Online Support:

a. Go to Online Support.
b. In the search field, type Common Event Enabler for Windows, and then click the Search icon.
c. Click Common Event Enabler <Version> for Windows, where <Version> is 6.2 or later, and then follow the
instructions to open or save the .iso file.
2. From the .iso file, extract the 32-bit or 64-bit EMC_CEE_Pack executable file that you need.
After the extraction completes, the CEE installation wizard opens.
3. Click Next to proceed to the License Agreement page.
4. Select the I accept... option to accept the terms of the license agreement, and then click Next.
5. On the Customer Information page, type your user name and organization, select your installation preference, and then
click Next.
6. On the Setup Type page, select Complete, and then click Next.
7. Click Install to begin the installation.
The progress of the installation is displayed. When the installation is complete, the InstallShield Wizard Completed page
appears.
8. Click Finish to exit the wizard.
9. Restart the system.

Related concepts
Integrating with the Common Event Enabler

Configure CEE for Windows

After you install CEE for Windows on a client computer, you must configure additional settings through the Windows Registry
Editor (regedit.exe).
1. Open the Windows Registry Editor.
2. Configure the following registry keys, if supported by your audit application:

210 Auditing
 Setting Registry location Key Value
CEE HTTP [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EMC\CEE\Configuration] HttpPort 12228
listen port
Enable audit [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EMC\CEE\CEPP\Audit\Co Enabled 1
remote nfiguration]
endpoints
Audit remote [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EMC\CEE\CEPP\Audit\Co EndPoint <EndPoint>
endpoints nfiguration]

NOTE:
● The HttpPort value must match the port in the CEE URIs that you specify during OneFS protocol audit configuration.
● The EndPoint value must be in the format <EndPoint_Name>@<IP_Address>. You can specify multiple endpoints by
separating each value with a semicolon (;).

The following key specifies a single remote endpoint:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EMC\CEE\CEPP\Audit\Configuration] EndPoint =
[email protected]
The following key specifies multiple remote endpoints:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EMC\CEE\CEPP\Audit\Configuration] EndPoint =
[email protected];[email protected]
3. Close the Windows Registry Editor.

Related concepts
Integrating with the Common Event Enabler

Configure CEE servers to deliver protocol audit events

You can configure CEE servers with OneFS to deliver protocol audit events by adding the URI of each server to the OneFS
configuration.
● Run the isi audit settings global modify command with the --cee-server-uris option to add the URIs of
the CEE servers to the OneFS configuration.
The following command adds the URIs of three CEE servers to the OneFS configuration:

isi audit settings global modify --cee-server-uris=http://server1.example.com:12228/

vee,http://server2.example.com:12228/vee,http://server3.example.com:12228/vee

Tracking the delivery of protocol audit events

The processes of capturing protocol audit events and their delivery to the CEE server do not happen simultaneously. Therefore,
even when no CEE servers are available, protocol audit events are still captured and stored for delivery to the CEE server at a
later time.
You can view the time of the last captured protocol audit event and the event time of the last event that was sent to the CEE
server. You can also move the log position of the CEE forwarder to a desired time.

View the time stamps of delivery of events to the CEE server and
syslog
You can view the time stamps of delivery of events to the CEE server and syslog on the node on which you are running the isi
audit progress view command.
This setting is available only through the command-line interface.

Auditing 211
● Run the isi audit progress view command to view the time stamps of delivery of events to the CEE server and
syslog on the node on which you are running the command.
A sample output of the isi audit progress view is shown:

Protocol Audit Log Time: Tue Mar 29 13:32:38 2016

Protocol Audit Cee Time: Tue Mar 29 13:32:38 2016
Protocol Audit Syslog Time: Fri Mar 25 17:00:28 2016

You can run the isi audit progress view command with the --lnn option to view the time stamps of delivery of
the audit events on a node specified through its logical node number.
The following command displays the progress of delivery of the audit events on a node with logical node number 2:

isi audit progress view --lnn=2

The output appears as shown:

Protocol Audit Log Time: Tue Mar 29 13:32:38 2016

Protocol Audit Cee Time: Tue Mar 29 13:32:38 2016
Protocol Audit Syslog Time: Fri Mar 25 17:00:28 2016

Move the log position of the CEE forwarder

You can manually move the log position of the CEE forwarder if the event time in the audit log indicates a lag in comparison to
the current time. This action globally moves the event time in all of the logs of the CEE forwarder within a PowerScale cluster to
the closest time.
NOTE: The events that are skipped will not be forwarded to the CEE server even though they might still be available on the
cluster.
● Run the isi audit settings global modify command with the --cee-log-time option to move the log position
of the CEE forwarder.
The following command moves the log position of the CEE forwarder manually:

isi audit settings global modify --cee-log-time='protocol@2016-01-27 01:03:02'

View the rate of delivery of protocol audit events to the CEE server
You can view the rate of delivery of protocol audit events to the CEE server.
● Run the isi statistics query command to view the current rate of delivery of the protocol audit events to the CEE
server on a node.
The following command displays the current rate of delivery of the protocol audit events to the CEE server:

isi statistics query current list --keys=node.audit.cee.export.rate

The output appears as shown:

Node node.audit.cee.export.rate
---------------------------------
1 3904.600000
---------------------------------
Total: 1

212 Auditing
 13
Snapshots
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Snapshots overview
• Data protection with SnapshotIQ
• Snapshot disk-space usage
• Snapshot schedules
• Snapshot aliases
• File and directory restoration
• Best practices for creating snapshots
• Best practices for creating snapshot schedules
• File clones
• Snapshot locks
• Snapshot reserve
• Writable snapshots
• SnapshotIQ license functionality
• Creating snapshots with SnapshotIQ
• Managing snapshots
• Restoring snapshot data
• Managing snapshot schedules
• Managing snapshot aliases
• Managing with snapshot locks
• Configure SnapshotIQ settings
• Set the snapshot reserve
• Managing changelists

Snapshots overview
A OneFS snapshot is a logical pointer to data that is stored on a cluster at a specific point in time.
A snapshot references a directory on a cluster, including all data stored in the directory and its subdirectories. If the data
referenced by a snapshot is modified, the snapshot stores a physical copy of the data that was modified. Snapshots are created
according to user specifications or by OneFS, which generates them automatically to facilitate system operations. You can also
create writable copies of snapshots, useful for testing data recovery scenarios.
To create and manage snapshots, you must activate a SnapshotIQ license on the cluster. Some applications must generate
snapshots to function but do not require you to activate a SnapshotIQ license. By default, these snapshots are automatically
deleted when OneFS no longer needs them. However, if you activate a SnapshotIQ license, you can retain these snapshots. You
can view snapshots that other modules generate without activating a SnapshotIQ license.
You can identify and locate snapshots by name or ID. Users specify snapshot names, then the snapshot is assigned to the virtual
directory that contains the snapshot. A snapshot ID is a numerical identifier that OneFS automatically assigns to a snapshot.

Data protection with SnapshotIQ

You can create snapshots to protect data with the SnapShotIQ software module. Snapshots protect data against accidental
deletion and modification by enabling you to restore deleted and modified files. SnapShotIQ writable snapshots allow you to
create modifiable copies of an entire dataset, which enables data recovery testing. To use SnapshotIQ, you must activate a
SnapshotIQ license on the cluster.

Snapshots 213
Snapshots are less costly than backing up your data on a separate physical storage device in terms of both time and storage
consumption. The time required to move data to another physical device depends on the amount of data being moved.
Snapshots are created almost instantaneously regardless of the amount of data that the snapshot references. Because
snapshots are available locally, users can often restore their data without requiring assistance from a system administrator.
Snapshots require less space than a remote backup because unaltered data is referenced rather than re-created.
Snapshots do not protect against hardware or file system issues. Snapshots reference data that is stored on a cluster, so if the
data on the cluster becomes unavailable, the snapshots are also unavailable. It is recommended that you back up your data to
separate physical devices in addition to creating snapshots.

Snapshot disk-space usage

The amount of disk space that a snapshot consumes depends on both the amount of data stored by the snapshot and the
amount of data the snapshot references from other snapshots.
Immediately after OneFScreates a snapshot, the snapshot consumes a negligible amount of disk space. The snapshot does not
consume additional disk space unless the data referenced by the snapshot is modified. If the data that a snapshot references
is modified, the snapshot stores read-only copies of the original data. A snapshot consumes only the space that is necessary to
restore the contents of a directory to the state it was in when the snapshot was taken.
To reduce disk-space usage, snapshots that reference the same directory reference each other, with older snapshots
referencing newer snapshots. If a file is deleted, and several snapshots reference the file, a single snapshot stores a copy
of the file, and the other snapshots reference the file from the snapshot that stored the copy. The reported size of a snapshot
reflects only the amount of data stored by the snapshot and does not include the amount of data referenced by the snapshot.
Because snapshots do not consume a set amount of storage space, there is no available-space requirement for creating a
snapshot. The size of a snapshot grows according to how the data referenced by the snapshot is modified. A cluster cannot
contain more than 20,000 snapshots.

Snapshot schedules
You can automatically generate snapshots according to a snapshot schedule.
With snapshot schedules, you can periodically generate snapshots of a directory without having to manually create a snapshot
every time. You can also assign an expiration period that determines when SnapshotIQ deletes each automatically generated
snapshot.

Related concepts
Managing snapshot schedules
Best practices for creating snapshot schedules

Related tasks
Create a snapshot schedule

Snapshot aliases
A snapshot alias is a logical pointer to a snapshot. If you specify an alias for a snapshot schedule, the alias will always point to
the most recent snapshot generated by that schedule. Assigning a snapshot alias allows you to quickly identify and access the
most recent snapshot generated according to a snapshot schedule.
If you allow clients to access snapshots through an alias, you can reassign the alias to redirect clients to other snapshots. In
addition to assigning snapshot aliases to snapshots, you can also assign snapshot aliases to the live version of the file system.
This can be useful if clients are accessing snapshots through a snapshot alias, and you want to redirect the clients to the live
version of the file system.

214 Snapshots
File and directory restoration
You can restore the files and directories that are referenced by a snapshot alias. You can copy the data from the snapshot,
clone a file from the snapshot, or revert the entire snapshot.
Copying a file from a snapshot duplicates the file, which roughly doubles the amount of storage space consumed. Even if you
delete the original file from the nonsnapshot directory, the copy of the file remains in the snapshot.
Cloning a file from a snapshot also duplicates the file. However, a clone does not consume additional space on the cluster unless
the clone or cloned file is modified.
Reverting a snapshot replaces the contents of a directory with the data that is stored in the snapshot. Before a snapshot is
reverted, SnapshotIQ creates a snapshot of the directory that is being replaced, which enables you to undo the snapshot revert
later. Reverting a snapshot can be useful if you want to undo many changes that you made to files and directories. If new files
or directories have been created in a directory since a snapshot of the directory was created, those files and directories are
deleted when the snapshot is reverted.
NOTE: If you move a directory, you cannot revert snapshots of the directory that were taken before the directory was
moved. Deleting and then re-creating a directory has the same effect as a move. You cannot revert snapshots of a directory
that were taken before the directory was deleted and then re-created.

Best practices for creating snapshots

Consider the following snapshot best practices when working with a large number of snapshots.
It is recommended that you do not create more than 1,000 snapshots of a single directory to avoid performance degradation. If
you create a snapshot of a root directory, that snapshot counts towards the total number of snapshots for any subdirectories
of the root directory. For example, if you create 500 snapshots of /ifs/data and 500 snapshots of /ifs/data/media, you
have created 1,000 snapshots of /ifs/data/media. Avoid creating snapshots of directories that are already referenced by
other snapshots.
It is recommended that you do not create more than 1,000 hard links per file in a snapshot to avoid performance degradation.
Always attempt to keep directory paths as shallow as possible. The deeper the depth of directories referenced by snapshots,
the greater the performance degradation.
Creating snapshots of directories higher on a directory tree will increase the amount of time it takes to modify the data
referenced by the snapshot and require more cluster resources to manage the snapshot and the directory. However, creating
snapshots of directories lower on directories trees will require more snapshot schedules, which can be difficult to manage. It is
recommended that you do not create snapshots of /ifs or /ifs/data.
You can create up to 20,000 snapshots on a cluster at a time. If your workflow requires a large number of snapshots on a
consistent basis, you might find that managing snapshots through the OneFS command-line interface is preferable to managing
snapshots through the OneFS web administration Interface. In the CLI, you can apply a wide variety of sorting and filtering
options and redirect lists into text files.
Mark snapshots for deletion when they are no longer needed, and ensure that the SnapshotDelete system job is enabled.
Disabling the SnapshotDelete job prevents unused disk space from being recaptured and can also cause performance
degradation over time.
If the system clock is set to a time zone other than Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), SnapShotIQ modifies snapshot duration
periods to match Daylight Savings Time (DST). Upon entering DST, snapshot durations are increased by an hour to adhere to
DST; when exiting DST, snapshot durations are decreased by an hour to adhere to standard time.

Best practices for creating snapshot schedules

Snapshot schedule configurations are categorized by how they delete snapshots: ordered deletions and unordered deletions.
An ordered deletion is the deletion of the oldest snapshot of a directory. An unordered deletion is the deletion of a snapshot that
is not the oldest snapshot of a directory. Unordered deletions take longer to complete and consume more cluster resources than
ordered deletions. However, unordered deletions can save space by retaining a smaller total number of snapshots.
The benefits of unordered deletions versus ordered deletions depend on how often the data referenced by the snapshots is
modified. If the data is modified frequently, unordered deletions save space. However, if data remains unmodified, unordered
deletions will most likely not save space, and it is recommended that you perform ordered deletions to free cluster resources.

Snapshots 215
To implement ordered deletions, assign the same duration period for all snapshots of a directory. The snapshots can be created
by one or multiple snapshot schedules. Always ensure that no more than 1000 snapshots of a directory are created.
To implement unordered snapshot deletions, create several snapshot schedules for a single directory, and then assign different
snapshot duration periods for each schedule. Ensure that all snapshots are created at the same time when possible.

NOTE: Snapshot schedules with frequency of "Every Minute" are not recommended and are to be avoided.

NOTE: It is recommended that you do not schedule multiple Snapshot jobs at the same time, as it might cause performance
issues on the cluster. For more information, see KB article: 000158788
The following table describes snapshot schedules that follow snapshot best practices:

Table 13. Snapshot schedule configurations

Deletion type Snapshot frequency Snapshot time Snapshot expiration Max snapshots retained
Ordered Every hour Beginning at 12:00 AM 1 month 720
deletion (for Ending at 11:59 AM
mostly static
data)
Unordered Every other hour Beginning at 12:00 AM 1 day 27
deletion (for Ending at 11:59 PM
frequently
modified data) Every day At 12:00 AM 1 week
Every week Saturday at 12:00 AM 1 month
Every month The first Saturday of the 3 months
month at 12:00 AM

Related concepts
Snapshot schedules

File clones
SnapshotIQ enables you to create file clones that share blocks with existing files in order to save space on the cluster. A file
clone usually consumes less space and takes less time to create than a file copy. Although you can clone files from snapshots,
clones are primarily used internally by OneFS.
The blocks that are shared between a clone and cloned file are contained in a hidden file called a shadow store. Immediately
after a clone is created, all data originally contained in the cloned file is transferred to a shadow store. Because both files
reference all blocks from the shadow store, the two files consume no more space than the original file; the clone does not take
up any additional space on the cluster. However, if the cloned file or clone is modified, the file and clone will share only blocks
that are common to both of them, and the modified, unshared blocks will occupy additional space on the cluster.
Over time, the shared blocks contained in the shadow store might become useless if neither the file nor clone references the
blocks. The cluster routinely deletes blocks that are no longer needed. You can force the cluster to delete unused blocks at any
time by running the ShadowStoreDelete job.
Clones cannot contain alternate data streams (ADS). If you clone a file that contains alternate data streams, the clone will not
contain the alternate data streams.

Related tasks
Clone a file from a snapshot

216 Snapshots
Shadow-store considerations
Shadow stores are hidden files that are referenced by cloned and deduplicated files. Files that reference shadow stores behave
differently than other files.
● Reading shadow-store references might be slower than reading data directly. Reading noncached shadow-store references
is slower than reading noncached data. Reading cached shadow-store references takes no more time than reading cached
data.
● When files that reference shadow stores are replicated to another PowerScale cluster or backed up to a Network Data
Management Protocol (NDMP) backup device, the shadow stores are not transferred to the target PowerScale cluster or
backup device. The files are transferred as if they contained the data that they reference from shadow stores. On the target
PowerScale cluster or backup device, the files consume the same amount of space as if they had not referenced shadow
stores.
● When OneFS creates a shadow store, OneFS assigns the shadow store to a storage pool of a file that references the
shadow store. If you delete the storage pool that a shadow store resides on, the shadow store is moved to a pool that
contains another file that references the shadow store.
● OneFS does not delete a shadow-store block immediately after the last reference to the block is deleted. Instead, OneFS
waits until the ShadowStoreDelete job is run to delete the unreferenced block. If many unreferenced blocks exist on the
cluster, OneFS might report a negative deduplication savings until the ShadowStoreDelete job is run.
● Shadow stores are protected at least as much as the most protected file that references it. For example, if one file that
references a shadow store resides in a storage pool with +2 protection and another file that references the shadow store
resides in a storage pool with +3 protection, the shadow store is protected at +3.
● Quotas account for files that reference shadow stores as if the files contained the data that is referenced from shadow
stores. From the perspective of a quota, shadow-store references do not exist. However, if a quota includes data protection
overhead, the quota does not account for the data protection overhead of shadow stores.

Snapshot locks
A snapshot lock prevents a snapshot from being deleted. If a snapshot has one or more locks that are applied to it, the snapshot
cannot be deleted: it is a locked snapshot. If the duration period of a locked snapshot expires, OneFS does not delete the
snapshot until all locks on the snapshot have been deleted.
OneFS applies snapshot locks to ensure that snapshots that OneFS applications generate are not deleted prematurely. You
can apply snapshot locks to snapshots that you create either manually or with a snapshot or SyncIQ schedule. However, avoid
creating or removing locks on system-created snapshots.
The maximum number of locks that can be applied to a single snapshot is 16. In general, you should not apply multiple locks to
the same snapshot. If there is a need for multiple locks on the same snapshot, care should be taken to ensure that the maximum
is not exceeded to avoid snapshot creation failure.

Related concepts
Managing with snapshot locks

Related tasks
Create a snapshot lock

Snapshot reserve
The snapshot reserve enables you to set aside a minimum percentage of the cluster storage capacity specifically for snapshots.
If specified, all other OneFS operations are unable to access the percentage of cluster capacity that is reserved for snapshots.
NOTE: The snapshot reserve does not limit the amount of space that snapshots can consume on the cluster. Snapshots
can consume a greater percentage of storage capacity specified by the snapshot reserve. It is recommended that you do
not specify a snapshot reserve.

Related tasks
Set the snapshot reserve

Snapshots 217
Writable snapshots
Writable snapshots enable you to create space-efficient, modifiable copies of a source snapshot. The source snapshot remains
read-only. You can use writable snapshots for tasks such as testing data recovery scenarios and quality assurance. You create
and manage writable snapshots using the OneFS CLI or API.
Using writable snapshots, you can create and manage a modifiable copy of an entire dataset from a source snapshot. The source
snapshot and its writable copy must reside in a directory in the /ifs file system.
You can access writable snapshots with regular file system commands such as ls and find. The writable snapshots feature
creates a directory quota on the root of the writable snapshot that you can use to monitor its space usage.

NOTE: Writable snapshots preserve only the hard links within the domain of the source snapshot.

Writable snapshots populate snapshot metadata on first access. Accessing large directories for the first time with operations
such as discovery (find), unlinking, and renaming can have slow response times. OneFS reads unmodified snapshot data from
the source snapshot, which can also affect response times.
NOTE:

The following restrictions apply to writable snapshots:

● Writable snapshots cannot be cloud-based.
● You cannot use compression, deduplication, inline data compression, file clones, or use small file packing with writable
snapshots.
● You cannot make a snapshot of a writable snapshot.
● Writable snapshots do not support Write Once - Read Many (WORM).
● Do not use SyncIQ snapshots or snapshots named SIQ-* as source snapshots.
● You cannot create writable snapshots in a BAM domain.
● You cannot create hard links to files within the domain of the writable snapshot from outside the writable snapshot
domain.
● You cannot rename files that reside in the writable snapshot domain from outside that writable snapshot domain.

SnapshotIQ license functionality

You can create snapshots only if you activate a SnapshotIQ license on a cluster. However, you can view snapshots and snapshot
locks that are created for internal use by OneFS without activating a SnapshotIQ license.
The following table describes what snapshot functionality is available depending on whether the SnapshotIQ license is active:

Functionality Inactive Active

Create snapshots and snapshot No Yes
schedules
Configure SnapshotIQ settings No Yes
View snapshot schedules Yes Yes
Delete snapshots Yes Yes
Access snapshot data Yes Yes
View snapshots Yes Yes
Create writeable snapshots No Yes

If you a SnapshotIQ license becomes inactive, you will no longer be able to create new snapshots, all snapshot schedules will be
disabled, and you will not be able to modify snapshots or snapshot settings. However, you will still be able to delete snapshots
and access data contained in snapshots.

218 Snapshots
Creating snapshots with SnapshotIQ
To create snapshots, you must configure the SnapshotIQ license on the cluster. You can create snapshots either by creating a
snapshot schedule or by manually generating an individual snapshot.
Manual snapshots are useful if you want to create a snapshot immediately, or at a time that is not specified in a snapshot
schedule. For example, suppose that you are planning changes to your file system, but are unsure of the consequences. You can
capture the current state of the file system in a snapshot before you make the changes.
Before creating snapshots, consider that reverting a snapshot requires that a SnapRevert domain exists for the directory that
is being reverted. If you intend to revert snapshots for a directory, it is recommended that you create SnapRevert domains for
those directories while the directories are empty. Creating a domain for a directory that contains less data takes less time.

Create a SnapRevert domain

Before you can revert a snapshot that contains a directory, you must create a SnapRevert domain for the directory. It is
recommended that you create SnapRevert domains for a directory while the directory is empty.
The root path of the SnapRevert domain must be the same root path of the snapshot. For example, a domain with a
root path of /ifs/data/media cannot be used to revert a snapshot with a root path of /ifs/data/media/archive.
To revert /ifs/data/media/archive, you must create a SnapRevert domain with a root path of /ifs/data/media/
archive.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types area, in the DomainMark row, from the Actions column, select Start Job.
3. In the Domain Root Path field, type the path of a snapshot root directory.
4. From the Type of domain list, select SnapRevert.
5. Ensure that the Delete this domain check box is cleared.
6. Click Start Job.

Create a snapshot schedule

You can create a snapshot schedule to continuously generate snapshots of directories.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshot Schedules.
2. Click Create a Schedule.
The Create a Schedule dialog box appears.
3. Optional: In the Schedule Name field, type a name for the snapshot schedule.
4. Optional: In the Naming pattern for Generated Snapshots field, type a naming pattern. Each snapshot that is generated
according to this schedule is assigned a name that is based on the pattern.
For example, the following naming pattern is valid:

WeeklyBackup_%m-%d-%Y_%H:%M

The example produces names similar to the following:

WeeklyBackup_07-13-2014_14:21

5. In the Path field, specify the directory that you want to include in snapshots that are generated according to this schedule.
6. From the Schedule list, select how often you want to generate snapshots according to the schedule.

Generate snapshots every day, or skip generating snapshots for a Select Daily, and specify how often you want to
specified number of days. generate snapshots.
Generate snapshots on specific days of the week, and optionally Select Weekly, and specify how often you want to
skip generating snapshots for a specified number of weeks. generate snapshots.
Generate snapshots on specific days of the month, and optionally Select Monthly, and specify how often you want to
skip generating snapshots for a specified number of months. generate snapshots.

Snapshots 219
 Generate snapshots on specific days of the year. Select Yearly, and specify how often you want to
generate snapshots.

NOTE: A snapshot schedule cannot span multiple days. For example, you cannot specify to begin generating snapshots
at 5:00 PM Monday and end at 5:00 AM Tuesday. To continuously generate snapshots for a period greater than a
day, you must create two snapshot schedules. For example, to generate snapshots from 5:00 PM Monday to 5:00 AM
Tuesday, create one schedule that generates snapshots from 5:00 PM to 11:59 PM on Monday, and another schedule
that generates snapshots from 12:00 AM to 5:00 AM on Tuesday.

7. Optional: To assign an alternative name to the most recent snapshot that is generated by the schedule, specify a snapshot
alias.
a. Next to Create an Alias, click Yes.
b. To modify the default snapshot alias name, in the Alias Name field, type an alternative name for the snapshot.
8. Optional: To specify a length of time that snapshots that are generated according to the schedule are kept before they are
deleted by OneFS, specify an expiration period.
a. Next to Snapshot Expiration, select Snapshots expire.
b. Next to Snapshots expire, specify how long you want to retain the snapshots that are generated according to the
schedule.
9. Click Create Schedule.

Related concepts
Best practices for creating snapshot schedules

Related references
Snapshot naming patterns

Create a snapshot
You can create a snapshot of a directory.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.
2. Click Create a Snapshot.
The Create a Snapshot dialog box appears.
3. Optional: In the Snapshot Name field, type a name for the snapshot.
4. In the Path field, specify the directory that you want the snapshot to contain.
5. Optional: To create an alternative name for the snapshot, select Create a snapshot alias, and then type the alias name.
6. Optional: To assign a time when OneFS will automatically delete the snapshot, specify an expiration period.
a. Select Snapshot Expires on.
b. In the calendar, specify the day that you want the snapshot to be automatically deleted.
7. Click Create Snapshot.

Related references
Snapshot information

Snapshot naming patterns

If you schedule snapshots to be automatically generated, either according to a snapshot schedule or a replication policy, you
must assign a snapshot naming pattern that determines how the snapshots are named. Snapshot naming patterns contain
variables that include information about how and when the snapshot was created.
The following variables can be included in a snapshot naming pattern:

Variable Description
%A The day of the week.

220 Snapshots
Variable Description
%a The abbreviated day of the week. For example, if the snapshot
is generated on a Sunday, %a is replaced with Sun.

%B The name of the month.

%b The abbreviated name of the month. For example, if the
snapshot is generated in September, %b is replaced with Sep.

%C The first two digits of the year. For example, if the snapshot is
created in 2014, %C is replaced with 20.

%c The time and day. This variable is equivalent to specifying %a

%b %e %T %Y.

%d The two digit day of the month.

%e The day of the month. A single-digit day is preceded by a
blank space.
%F The date. This variable is equivalent to specifying %Y-%m-%d.

%G The year. This variable is equivalent to specifying %Y.

However, if the snapshot is created in a week that has less
than four days in the current year, the year that contains the
majority of the days of the week is displayed. The first day of
the week is calculated as Monday. For example, if a snapshot
is created on Sunday, January 1, 2017, %G is replaced with
2016, because only one day of that week is in 2017.

%g The abbreviated year. This variable is equivalent to specifying

%y. However, if the snapshot was created in a week that
has less than four days in the current year, the year that
contains the majority of the days of the week is displayed. The
first day of the week is calculated as Monday. For example,
if a snapshot is created on Sunday, January 1, 2017, %g is
replaced with 16, because only one day of that week is in
2017.
%H The hour. The hour is represented on the 24-hour clock.
Single-digit hours are preceded by a zero. For example, if a
snapshot is created at 1:45 AM, %H is replaced with 01.

%h The abbreviated name of the month. This variable is

equivalent to specifying %b.

%I The hour represented on the 12-hour clock. Single-digit hours

are preceded by a zero. For example, if a snapshot is created
at 1:45 PM, %I is replaced with 01.

%j The numeric day of the year. For example, if a snapshot is

created on February 1, %j is replaced with 32.

%k The hour represented on the 24-hour clock. Single-digit hours

are preceded by a blank space.
%l The hour represented on the 12-hour clock. Single-digit hours
are preceded by a blank space. For example, if a snapshot is
created at 1:45 AM, %I is replaced with 1.

%M The two-digit minute.

%m The two-digit month.
%p AM or PM.

%{PolicyName} The name of the replication policy that the snapshot was
created for. This variable is valid only if you are specifying
a snapshot naming pattern for a replication policy.

Snapshots 221
Variable Description
%R The time. This variable is equivalent to specifying %H:%M.

%r The time. This variable is equivalent to specifying %I:%M:%S

%p.

%S The two-digit second.

%s The second represented in UNIX or POSIX time.
%{SrcCluster} The name of the source cluster of the replication policy that
the snapshot was created for. This variable is valid only if
you are specifying a snapshot naming pattern for a replication
policy.
%T The time. This variable is equivalent to specifying %H:%M:%S

%U The two-digit numerical week of the year. Numbers range

from 00 to 53. The first day of the week is calculated as
Sunday.
%u The numerical day of the week. Numbers range from 1 to
7. The first day of the week is calculated as Monday. For
example, if a snapshot is created on Sunday, %u is replaced
with 7.

%V The two-digit numerical week of the year that the snapshot

was created in. Numbers range from 01 to 53. The first day
of the week is calculated as Monday. If the week of January
1 is four or more days in length, then that week is counted as
the first week of the year.
%v The day that the snapshot was created. This variable is
equivalent to specifying %e-%b-%Y.

%W The two-digit numerical week of the year that the snapshot

was created in. Numbers range from 00 to 53. The first day
of the week is calculated as Monday.
%w The numerical day of the week that the snapshot was created
on. Numbers range from 0 to 6. The first day of the week
is calculated as Sunday. For example, if the snapshot was
created on Sunday, %w is replaced with 0.

%X The time that the snapshot was created. This variable is

equivalent to specifying %H:%M:%S.

%Y The year that the snapshot was created in.

%y The last two digits of the year that the snapshot was created
in. For example, if the snapshot was created in 2014, %y is
replaced with 14.

%Z The time zone that the snapshot was created in.

%z The offset from coordinated universal time (UTC) of the time
zone that the snapshot was created in. If preceded by a plus
sign, the time zone is east of UTC. If preceded by a minus
sign, the time zone is west of UTC.
%+ The time and date that the snapshot was created. This
variable is equivalent to specifying %a %b %e %X %Z %Y.

%% Escapes a percent sign. For example, 100%% is replaced with

100%.

222 Snapshots
Managing snapshots
You can delete and view snapshots. You can also modify the name, duration period, and snapshot alias of an existing snapshot.
Unless you specify that you are creating a writable snapshot, the data that is contained in a snapshot is read-only and cannot be
modified.

Reducing snapshot disk-space usage

If multiple snapshots contain the same directories, deleting one of the snapshots might not free the entire amount of space that
the system reports as the size of the snapshot. The size of a snapshot is the maximum amount of data that might be freed if
the snapshot is deleted.
Deleting a snapshot frees only the space that is taken up exclusively by that snapshot. If two snapshots reference the same
stored data, that data is not freed until both snapshots are deleted. Remember that snapshots store data contained in all
subdirectories of the root directory; if snapshot_one contains /ifs/data/, and snapshot_two contains /ifs/data/dir, the
two snapshots most likely share data.
If you delete a directory, and then re-create it, a snapshot containing the directory stores the entire re-created directory, even if
the files in that directory are never modified.
Deleting multiple snapshots that contain the same directories is more likely to free data than deleting multiple snapshots that
contain different directories.
If multiple snapshots contain the same directories, deleting older snapshots is more likely to free disk-space than deleting newer
snapshots.
Snapshots that are assigned expiration dates are automatically marked for deletion by the snapshot daemon. If the daemon is
disabled, snapshots will not be automatically deleted by the system. It is recommended that you do not disable the snapshot
daemon.

Delete snapshots
You can delete a snapshot if you no longer want to access the data that is contained in the snapshot.
OneFS frees disk space that is occupied by deleted snapshots when the SnapshotDelete job is run. Also, if you delete a
snapshot that contains clones or cloned files, data in a shadow store might no longer be referenced by files on the cluster;
OneFS deletes unreferenced data in a shadow store when the ShadowStoreDelete job is run. OneFS routinely runs both the
ShadowStoreDelete and SnapshotDelete jobs. However, you can also manually run the jobs at any time.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.
2. In the list of snapshots, select the snapshot or snapshots that you want to delete.
a. From the Select an action list, select Delete.
b. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.
3. Optional: To increase the speed at which deleted snapshot data is freed on the cluster, run the SnapshotDelete job.
a. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
b. In the Job Types area, locate SnapshotDelete, and then click Start Job.
The Start a Job dialog box appears.
c. Click Start Job.
4. Optional: To increase the speed at which deleted data that is shared between deduplicated and cloned files is freed on the
cluster, run the ShadowStoreDelete job.
Run the ShadowStoreDelete job only after you run the SnapshotDelete job.
a. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
b. In the Job Types area, locate ShadowStoreDelete, and then click Start Job.
The Start a Job dialog box appears.
c. Click Start Job.

Related concepts
Snapshot disk-space usage
Reducing snapshot disk-space usage
Best practices for creating snapshots

Snapshots 223
Modify snapshot attributes
You can modify the name and expiration date of a snapshot.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.
2. In the list of snapshots, locate the snapshot that you want to modify, and then click View/Edit.
The View Snapshot Details dialog box appears.
3. Click Edit.
The Edit Snapshot Details dialog box appears.
4. Modify the attributes that you want to change.
5. Click Save Changes.

Related references
Snapshot information

Assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot

You can assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.
2. In the Snapshot Aliases table, in the row of an alias, click View/Edit.
3. In the Alias Name area, click Edit.
4. In the Alias Name field, type a new alias name.
5. Click Save.

Related references
Snapshot information

View snapshots
You can view a list of snapshots.
Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.
The snapshots are listed in the Snapshots table.

Related references
Snapshot information

Snapshot information
You can view information about snapshots, including the total amount of space consumed by all snapshots.
The following information is displayed in the Saved Snapshots area:

Saved Snapshots Indicates the total number of snapshots that exist on the cluster.
Snapshots Indicates the total number of snapshots that were deleted on the cluster since the last snapshot delete
Pending Deletion job was run. The space that is consumed by the deleted snapshots is not freed until the snapshot delete
job is run again.
Snapshot Aliases Indicates the total number of snapshot aliases that exist on the cluster.
Capacity Used by Indicates the total amount of space that is consumed by all snapshots.
Snapshots

Related tasks
Create a snapshot

224 Snapshots
Modify snapshot attributes
Assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot
View snapshots

Restoring snapshot data

You can restore snapshot data through various methods. You can revert a snapshot or access snapshot data through the
snapshots directory.
From the snapshots directory, you can either clone a file or copy a directory or a file. The snapshots directory can be accessed
through Windows Explorer or a UNIX command line. You can disable and enable access to the snapshots directory for any of
these methods through snapshots settings.

Revert a snapshot
You can revert a directory back to the state it was in when a snapshot was taken. Before OneFS reverts a snapshot, OneFS
generates a snapshot of the directory being reverted, so that data that is stored in the directory is not lost. OneFS does not
delete a snapshot after reverting it.
● Create a SnapRevert domain for the directory.
● Create a snapshot of a directory.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types table, locate the SnapRevert job, and then click Start Job.
The Start a Job dialog box appears.
3. Optional: To specify a priority for the job, from the Priority list, select a priority.
Lower values indicate a higher priority. If you do not specify a priority, the job is assigned the default snapshot revert
priority.

4. Optional: To specify the amount of cluster resources the job is allowed to consume, from the Impact Policy list, select an
impact policy.
If you do not specify a policy, the job is assigned the default snapshot revert policy.

5. In the Snapshot ID to revert field, type the name or ID of the snapshot that you want to revert, and then click Start Job.

Related tasks
Create a SnapRevert domain

Restore a file or directory using Windows Explorer

If the Microsoft Shadow Copy Client is installed on your computer, you can use it to restore files and directories that are stored
in snapshots.
This method of restoring files and directories does not preserve the original permissions. Instead, this method assigns the file
or directory the same permissions as the directory you are copying that file or directory into. To preserve permissions while
restoring data from a snapshot, run the cp command with the -a option on a UNIX command line.
NOTE: You can access up to 64 snapshots of a directory through Windows explorer, starting with the most recent
snapshot. To access more than 64 snapshots for a directory, access the cluster through a UNIX command line.
1. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the directory that you want to restore or the directory that contains the file that you want
to restore.
If the directory has been deleted, you must recreate the directory.
2. Right-click the folder, and then click Properties.
3. In the Properties window, click the Previous Versions tab.
4. Select the version of the folder that you want to restore or the version of the folder that contains the version of the file that
you want to restore.
5. Restore the version of the file or directory.
● To restore all files in the selected directory, click Restore.

Snapshots 225
 ● To copy the selected directory to another location, click Copy, and then specify a location to copy the directory to.
● To restore a specific file, click Open, and then copy the file into the original directory, replacing the existing copy with
the snapshot version.

Restore a file or directory through a UNIX command line

You can restore a file or directory from a snapshot through a UNIX command line.
1. Open a connection to the cluster through a UNIX command line.
2. Optional: To view the contents of the snapshot you want to restore a file or directory from, run the ls command for a
directory contained in the snapshots root directory.
For example, the following command displays the contents of the /archive directory contained in Snapshot2014Jun04:

ls /ifs/.snapshot/Snapshot2014Jun04/archive

3. Copy the file or directory by using the cp command.

For example, the following command creates a copy of the file1 file:

cp -a /ifs/.snapshot/Snapshot2014Jun04/archive/file1 \
/ifs/archive/file1_copy

Clone a file from a snapshot

You can clone a file from a snapshot.

1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. To view the contents of the snapshot you want to restore a file or directory from, run the ls command for a subdirectory of
the snapshots root directory.
For example, the following command displays the contents of the /archive directory contained in Snapshot2014Jun04:

ls /ifs/.snapshot/Snapshot2014Jun04/archive

3. Clone a file from the snapshot by running the cp command with the -c option.
For example, the following command clones test.txt from Snapshot2014Jun04:

cp -c /ifs/.snapshot/Snapshot2014Jun04/archive/test.txt \
/ifs/archive/test_clone.text

Related concepts
File clones

Managing snapshot schedules

You can modify, delete, and view snapshot schedules.

Modify a snapshot schedule

Any changes to a snapshot schedule are applied only to snapshots that are generated after the changes are made. Schedule
changes do not affect existing snapshots.
If you modify the snapshot alias of a snapshot schedule, the alias is assigned to the next snapshot that is generated based on
the schedule. However, the old alias is not removed from the last snapshot that it was assigned to. Unless you manually remove
the old alias, the alias remains attached to the last snapshot that it was assigned to.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshot Schedules.
2. In the Schedules table, locate the snapshot schedule that you want to modify, and then click View/Edit.
The View Snapshot Schedule Details dialog box appears.

226 Snapshots
3. Click Edit.
The Edit Snapshot Schedule Details dialog box appears.
4. Modify the snapshot schedule attributes that you want to change.
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Snapshot schedules
Best practices for creating snapshot schedules

Delete a snapshot schedule

You can delete a snapshot schedule. Deleting a snapshot schedule does not delete snapshots that were generated according to
the schedule.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshot Schedules.
2. In the Schedules table, locate the snapshot schedule that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
The Confirm Delete dialog box appears.
3. Click Delete.

Related concepts
Snapshot schedules

View snapshot schedules

You can view snapshot schedules.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshot Schedules.
2. In the Schedules table, locate the snapshot schedule that you want to view, and then click View/Edit.

Related concepts
Snapshot schedules

Managing snapshot aliases

You can configure snapshot schedules to assign a snapshot alias to the most recent snapshot created by a snapshot schedule.
You can also manually assign snapshot aliases to specific snapshots or the live version of the file system.

Configure a snapshot alias for a snapshot schedule

You can configure a snapshot schedule to assign a snapshot alias to the most recent snapshot that is created by the schedule.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshot Schedules
2. In the Schedules table, locate the snapshot schedule that you want to configure, and click View/Edit.
The View Snapshot Schedule Details dialog box appears.
3. Click Edit.
The Edit Snapshot Schedule Details dialog box appears.
4. Select Create a snapshot alias.
5. In the Snapshot Alias field, type the name of the snapshot alias.
6. Click Save Changes.

Assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot

You can assign a snapshot alias to a snapshot.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.

Snapshots 227
2. In the Snapshot Aliases table, in the row of an alias, click View/Edit.
3. In the Alias Name area, click Edit.
4. In the Alias Name field, type a new alias name.
5. Click Save.

Related references
Snapshot information

Reassign a snapshot alias to the live file system

You can reassign a snapshot alias to redirect clients from a snapshot to the live file system.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi snapshot aliases modify command.
The following command reassigns the latestWeekly alias to the live file system:

isi snapshot aliases modify latestWeekly --target LIVE

View snapshot aliases

You can view a list of all snapshot aliases.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. View a list of all snapshot aliases by running the following command:

isi snapshot aliases list

If a snapshot alias references the live version of the file system, the Target ID is -1.

3. Optional: View information about a specific snapshot by running the isi snapshot aliases view command.
The following command displays information about latestWeekly:

isi snapshot aliases view latestWeekly

Snapshot alias information

You can view information about snapshot aliases through the output of the isi snapshot aliases view command.

ID The numerical ID of the snapshot alias.

Name The name of the snapshot alias.
Target ID The numerical ID of the snapshot that is referenced by the alias.
Target Name The name of the snapshot that is referenced by the alias.
Created The date that the snapshot alias was created.

Managing with snapshot locks

You can delete, create, and modify the expiration date of snapshot locks.
CAUTION:

Do not delete or modify a snapshot lock that OneFS creates unless Dell Technologies Support instructs you to
do so.

228 Snapshots
Deleting a OneFS-created snapshot lock can result in data loss. If you delete a OneFS-created snapshot lock, the corresponding
snapshot might be deleted while it is still in use by OneFS. If OneFS cannot access a snapshot that is necessary for an
operation, the operation can malfunction and data loss can result. Modifying the expiration date of a OneFS-created snapshot
lock can also result in data loss because the corresponding snapshot can be deleted prematurely.

Related concepts
Snapshot locks

Create a snapshot lock

You create snapshot locks to prevent snapshots from being automatically deleted.
You can also prevent a snapshot from being automatically deleted by extending the duration period of the snapshot.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).

CAUTION: Avoid creating snapshot locks on system-created snapshots.

1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. To create a snapshot lock, run the isi snapshot locks create command.
For example, the following command applies a snapshot lock to SnapshotAugust2021, sets the lock to expire in one month,
and adds a description of "Maintenance Lock":

isi snapshot locks create SnapshotAugust2021 --expires 1M \

--comment "Maintenance Lock"

Related concepts
Snapshot locks

Related references
Snapshot lock information

Modify a snapshot lock expiration date

You can modify the expiration date of a snapshot lock.

CAUTION: It is recommended that you do not modify the expiration dates of snapshot locks.

This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).

1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi snapshot locks modify command.
The following command sets an expiration date two days from the present date for a snapshot lock with an ID of 1 that is
applied to a snapshot named SnapshotApril2014:

isi snapshot locks modify SnapshotApril2014 1 --expires 2D

Related concepts
Snapshot locks

Related references
Snapshot lock information

Snapshots 229
Delete a snapshot lock
You can delete a snapshot lock.

CAUTION: It is recommended that you do not delete snapshot locks.

This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).

1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Delete a snapshot lock by running the isi snapshot locks delete command.
The following command deletes a snapshot lock that is applied to SnapshotApril2014 and has a lock ID of 1:

isi snapshot locks delete Snapshot2014Apr16 1

The system prompts you to confirm that you want to delete the snapshot lock.
3. Type yes and then press ENTER.

Related concepts
Snapshot locks

Snapshot lock information

You can view snapshot lock information through the isi snapshot locks view and isi snapshot locks list
commands.

ID Numerical identification number of the snapshot lock.

Comment Description of the snapshot lock. This can be any string specified by a user.
Expires The date that the snapshot lock will be automatically deleted by OneFS.
Count The number of times the snapshot lock is held.
The file clone operation can hold a single snapshot lock multiple times. If multiple file clones are created
simultaneously, the file clone operation holds the same lock multiple times, rather than creating multiple
locks. If you delete a snapshot lock that is held more than once, you will delete only one of the instances
that the lock is held. In order to delete a snapshot lock that is held multiple times, you must delete the
snapshot lock the same number of times as displayed in the count field.

Configure SnapshotIQ settings

You can configure SnapshotIQ settings that determine how snapshots can be created and the methods that users can access
snapshot data.
1. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Settings.
2. Modify SnapshotIQ settings, and then click Save.

Related references
SnapshotIQ settings

SnapshotIQ settings
SnapshotIQ settings determine how snapshots behave and can be accessed.
The following SnapshotIQ settings can be configured:

Snapshot Determines whether snapshots can be generated.

Scheduling NOTE: Disabling snapshot generation might cause some OneFS operations to fail. It is recommended
that you do not disable this setting.

230 Snapshots
 Auto-create Determines whether snapshots are automatically generated according to snapshot
Snapshots schedules.
Auto-delete Determines whether snapshots are automatically deleted according to their
Snapshots expiration dates.

NFS Visibility &

Root Directory Determines whether snapshot directories are accessible through NFS.
Accessibility
Accessible
Root Directory Determines whether snapshot directories are visible through NFS.
Visible
Sub-directories Determines whether snapshot subdirectories are accessible through NFS.
Accessible

SMB Visibility &

Root Directory Determines whether snapshot directories are accessible through SMB.
Accessible
Accessible
Root Directory Determines whether snapshot directories are visible through SMB.
Visible
Sub-directories Determines whether snapshot subdirectories are accessible through SMB.
Accessible

Local Visibility &

Root Directory Determines whether snapshot directories are accessible through the local file
Accessibility
Accessible system. You can access the local file system through an SSH connection or the
local console.
Root Directory Determines whether snapshot directories are visible through the local file system.
Visible You can access the local file system through an SSH connection or the local
console.
Sub-directories Determines whether snapshot subdirectories are accessible through the local file
Accessible system. You can access the local file system through an SSH connection or the
local console.

Related tasks
Configure SnapshotIQ settings

Set the snapshot reserve

You can specify a minimum percentage of cluster-storage capacity that you want to reserve for snapshots.
The snapshot reserve does not limit the amount of space that snapshots are allowed to consume on the cluster. Snapshots can
consume more than the percentage of capacity specified by the snapshot reserve. It is recommended that you do not specify a
snapshot reserve.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Set the snapshot reserve by running the isi snapshot settings modify command with the --reserve option.
For example, the following command sets the snapshot reserve to 20%:

isi snapshot settings modify --reserve 20

Related concepts
Snapshot reserve

Snapshots 231
Managing changelists
You can create and view changelists that describe the differences between two snapshots. You can create a changelist for any
two snapshots that have a common root directory.
Changelists are most commonly accessed by applications through the OneFS Platform API. For example, a custom application
could regularly compare the two most recent snapshots of a critical directory path to determine whether to back up the
directory, or to trigger other actions.

Create a changelist
You can create a changelist to view the differences between two snapshots.
1. Optional: Record the IDs of the snapshots.
a. Click Data Protection > SnapshotIQ > Snapshots.
b. In the row of each snapshot that you want to create a changelist for, click View Details, and record the ID of the
snapshot.
2. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
3. In the Job Types area, in the ChangelistCreate row, from the Actions column, select Start Job.
4. In the Older Snapshot ID field, type the ID of the older snapshot.
5. In the Newer Snapshot ID field, type the ID of the newer snapshot.
6. Click Start Job.

Delete a changelist
You can delete a changelist
Run the isi_changelist_mod command with the -k option.
The following command deletes changelist 22_24:

isi_changelist_mod -k 22_24

View a changelist
You can view a changelist that describes the differences between two snapshots. This procedure is available only through the
command-line interface (CLI).
1. View the IDs of changelists by running the following command:

isi_changelist_mod -l

Changelist IDs include the IDs of both snapshots used to create the changelist. If OneFS is still in the process of creating a
changelist, inprog is appended to the changelist ID.

2. Optional: View all contents of a changelist by running the isi_changelist_mod command with the -a option.
The following command displays the contents of a changelist named 2_6:

isi_changelist_mod -a 2_6

Changelist information
You can view the information contained in changelists.

NOTE: The information contained in changelists is meant to be consumed by applications through the OneFS Platform API.

The following information is displayed for each item in the changelist when you run the isi_changelist_mod command:

232 Snapshots
st_ino Displays the inode number of the specified item.
st_mode Displays the file type and permissions for the specified item.
st_size Displays the total size of the item in bytes.
st_atime Displays the POSIX timestamp of when the item was last accessed.
st_mtime Displays the POSIX timestamp of when the item was last modified.
st_ctime Displays the POSIX timestamp of when the item was last changed.
cl_flags Displays information about the item and what kinds of changes were made to the item.

01 The item was added or moved under the root directory of the snapshots.
02 The item was removed or moved out of the root directory of the snapshots.
04 The path of the item was changed without being removed from the root directory
of the snapshot.
10 The item either currently contains or at one time contained Alternate Data Streams
(ADS).
20 The item is an ADS.
40 The item has hardlinks.

NOTE: These values are added together in the output. For example, if an ADS was added, the code
would be cl_flags=021.

path The absolute path of the specified file or directory.

Snapshots 233
 14
Deduplication with SmartDedupe
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Deduplication overview
• Deduplication jobs
• Data replication and backup with deduplication
• Snapshots with deduplication
• Deduplication considerations
• Shadow-store considerations
• SmartDedupe license functionality
• Managing deduplication

Deduplication overview
SmartDedupe enables you to save storage space on your cluster by reducing redundant data. Deduplication maximizes the
efficiency of your cluster by decreasing the amount of storage that is required to store multiple files with identical blocks.
The SmartDedupe software module deduplicates data by scanning a PowerScale cluster for identical data blocks. Each block is
8 KB. If SmartDedupe finds duplicate blocks, SmartDedupe moves a single copy of the blocks to a hidden file called a shadow
store. SmartDedupe then deletes the duplicate blocks from the original files and replaces the blocks with pointers to the shadow
store.
Deduplication is applied at the directory level, targeting all files and directories underneath one or more root directories.
SmartDedupe not only deduplicates identical blocks in different files, it also deduplicates identical blocks within a single file.
Before you deduplicate a directory, you can get an estimate of the amount of space you can expect to save. After you begin
deduplicating a directory, you can monitor the amount of space that deduplication is saving in real time.
To enable deduplicating two or more files, the files must have the same disk pool policy ID and protection policy. If either or both
of these attributes differ between two or more identical files, or files with identical 8 K blocks, the files are not deduplicated.
Because it is possible to specify protection policies on a per-file or per-directory basis, deduplication can be further
affected. Consider the example of two files, /ifs/data/projects/alpha/logo.jpg and /ifs/data/projects/
beta/logo.jpg. Even if the logo.jpg files in both directories are identical, they would not be deduplicated if they have
different protection policies.
If you have activated a SmartPools license on your cluster, you can also specify custom file pool policies. These file pool policies
might result in identical files or files with identical 8 K blocks being stored in different node pools. Those files would have
different disk pool policy IDs and would not be deduplicated.
SmartDedupe also does not deduplicate files that are 32 KB or smaller, because doing so would consume more cluster resources
than the storage savings are worth. The default size of a shadow store is 2 GB. Each shadow store can contain up to 256,000
blocks. Each block in a shadow store can be referenced up to 32,000 times.

Deduplication jobs
A deduplication system maintenance job deduplicates data on a cluster. You can monitor and control deduplication jobs as
you would any other maintenance job on the cluster. Although the overall performance impact of deduplication is minimal, the
deduplication job consumes 400 MB of memory per node.
When a deduplication job runs for the first time on a cluster, SmartDedupe samples blocks from each file and creates index
entries for those blocks. If the index entries of two blocks match, SmartDedupe scans the blocks that are next to the matching
pair and then deduplicates all duplicate blocks. After a deduplication job samples a file once, new deduplication jobs will not
sample the file again until the file is modified.

234 Deduplication with SmartDedupe

The first deduplication job that you run can take longer to complete than subsequent deduplication jobs. The first deduplication
job must scan all files under the specified directories to generate the initial index. If subsequent deduplication jobs take a long
time to complete, the most likely cause is that a large amount of data is being deduplicated. However, it can also indicate that
users are storing large amounts of new data on the cluster. If a deduplication job is interrupted during the deduplication process,
the job automatically restarts the scanning process from where the job was interrupted.
NOTE: Run deduplication jobs when users are not modifying data on the cluster. If users continually modify files on the
cluster, the storage savings are minimal because the deduplicated blocks are constantly removed from the shadow store.
How frequently you should run a deduplication job on your PowerScale cluster varies, depending on the size of your dataset, the
rate of changes, and opportunity. For most clusters, it is recommended that you start a deduplication job every 7 to 10 days.
You can start a deduplication job manually or schedule a recurring job at specified intervals. By default, the deduplication job is
configured to run at a low priority. However, you can specify job controls, such as priority and impact, on deduplication jobs that
run manually or by schedule.
The permissions required to modify deduplication settings are not the same as the permissions required to run a deduplication
job. Although a user must have the maintenance job permission to run a deduplication job, the user must have the deduplication
permission to modify deduplication settings. By default, the root user and SystemAdmin user have the necessary permissions for
all deduplication operations.

Related tasks
Assess deduplication space savings
Specify deduplication settings

Data replication and backup with deduplication

When deduplicated files are replicated to another PowerScale cluster or backed up to a tape device, the deduplicated files no
longer share blocks on the target PowerScale cluster or backup device. However, although you can deduplicate data on a target
PowerScale cluster, you cannot deduplicate data on an NDMP backup device.
Shadows stores are not transferred to target clusters or backup devices. Because of this, deduplicated files do not consume
less space than non-deduplicated files when they are replicated or backed up. To avoid running out of space, you must
ensure that target clusters and tape devices have enough free space to store deduplicated data as if the data had not
been deduplicated. To reduce the amount of storage space consumed on a target PowerScale cluster, you can configure
deduplication for the target directories of your replication policies. Although this will deduplicate data on the target directory,
it will not allow SyncIQ to transfer shadow stores. Deduplication is still performed by deduplication jobs running on the target
cluster.
The amount of cluster resources required to backup and replicate deduplicated data is the same as for non-deduplicated data.
You can deduplicate data while the data is being replicated or backed up.

Snapshots with deduplication

You cannot deduplicate the data stored in a snapshot. However, you can create snapshots of deduplicated data.
If you create a snapshot for a deduplicated directory, and then modify the contents of that directory, the references to shadow
stores will be transferred to the snapshot over time. Therefore, if you enable deduplication before you create snapshots, you
will save more space on your cluster. If you implement deduplication on a cluster that already has a significant amount of
data stored in snapshots, it will take time before the snapshot data is affected by deduplication. Newly created snapshots can
contain deduplicated data, but snapshots created before deduplication was implemented cannot.
If you plan on reverting a snapshot, it is best to revert the snapshot before running a deduplication job. Restoring a snapshot
can overwrite many of the files on the cluster. Any deduplicated files are reverted back to normal files if they are overwritten
by a snapshot revert. However, after the snapshot revert is complete, you can deduplicate the directory and the space savings
persist on the cluster.

Deduplication with SmartDedupe 235

Deduplication considerations
Deduplication can significantly increase the efficiency at which you store data. However, the effect of deduplication varies
depending on the cluster.
You can reduce redundancy on a cluster by running SmartDedupe. Deduplication creates links that can impact the speed at
which you can read from and write to files. In particular, sequentially reading chunks smaller than 512 KB of a deduplicated
file can be significantly slower than reading the same small, sequential chunks of a non-deduplicated file. This performance
degradation applies only if you are reading non-cached data. For cached data, the performance for deduplicated files is
potentially better than non-deduplicated files. If you stream chunks larger than 512 KB, deduplication does not significantly
impact the read performance of the file. If you intend on streaming 8 KB or less of each file at a time, and you do not plan on
concurrently streaming the files, it is recommended that you do not deduplicate the files.
Deduplication is most effective when applied to static or archived files and directories. The less that files are modified, the less
negative effects deduplication has on the cluster. For example, virtual machines often contain several copies of identical files
that are rarely modified. Deduplicating a large number of virtual machines can greatly reduce the amount of consumed storage
space.
WARNING: Use caution when setting the Dedupe default impact policy value to HIGH. Setting the default
impact policy to HIGH can have a significant impact on system performance. If you set the value to HIGH when
scheduling a Dedupe job, ensure that you set it back to the default impact policy value of LOW after completing
the job.

Shadow-store considerations
Shadow stores are hidden files that are referenced by cloned and deduplicated files. Files that reference shadow stores behave
differently than other files.
● Reading shadow-store references might be slower than reading data directly. Reading noncached shadow-store references
is slower than reading noncached data. Reading cached shadow-store references takes no more time than reading cached
data.
● When files that reference shadow stores are replicated to another PowerScale cluster or backed up to a Network Data
Management Protocol (NDMP) backup device, the shadow stores are not transferred to the target PowerScale cluster or
backup device. The files are transferred as if they contained the data that they reference from shadow stores. On the target
PowerScale cluster or backup device, the files consume the same amount of space as if they had not referenced shadow
stores.
● When OneFS creates a shadow store, OneFS assigns the shadow store to a storage pool of a file that references the
shadow store. If you delete the storage pool that a shadow store resides on, the shadow store is moved to a pool that
contains another file that references the shadow store.
● OneFS does not delete a shadow-store block immediately after the last reference to the block is deleted. Instead, OneFS
waits until the ShadowStoreDelete job is run to delete the unreferenced block. If many unreferenced blocks exist on the
cluster, OneFS might report a negative deduplication savings until the ShadowStoreDelete job is run.
● Shadow stores are protected at least as much as the most protected file that references it. For example, if one file that
references a shadow store resides in a storage pool with +2 protection and another file that references the shadow store
resides in a storage pool with +3 protection, the shadow store is protected at +3.
● Quotas account for files that reference shadow stores as if the files contained the data that is referenced from shadow
stores. From the perspective of a quota, shadow-store references do not exist. However, if a quota includes data protection
overhead, the quota does not account for the data protection overhead of shadow stores.

SmartDedupe license functionality

You can deduplicate data only if you activate a SmartDedupe license on a cluster. However, you can assess deduplication
savings without activating a SmartDedupe license.
If you activate a SmartDedupe license, and then deduplicate data, the space savings are not lost if the license becomes inactive.
You can also still view deduplication savings while the license is inactive. However, you will not be able to deduplicate additional
data until you re-activate the SmartDedupe license.

236 Deduplication with SmartDedupe

Managing deduplication
You can manage deduplication on a cluster by first assessing how much space you can save by deduplicating individual
directories. After you determine which directories are worth deduplicating, you can configure SmartDedupe to deduplicate those
directories specifically. You can then monitor the actual amount of disk space you are saving.

Assess deduplication space savings

You can assess the amount of disk space you will save by deduplicating a directory.
1. Click File System > Deduplication > Settings.
2. In the Assess Deduplication area, click Browse and select a directory that you want to deduplicate.
If you assess multiple directories, disk savings are not differentiated by directory in the deduplication report.

3. Click Save to save the deduplication settings.

4. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
5. In the Job Types table, locate the DedupeAssessment job, and then click Start Job.
The Start a Job dialog box appears.
6. Click Start Job.
7. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
Active jobs appear in the Active Jobs list.
8. Wait for the assessment job to complete.
When the DedupeAssessment job is complete, the job is removed from the Active Jobs list.
9. Click File System > Deduplication > Summary.
In the Deduplication Assessment Reports area, in the row of the most recent assessment job, click View Report.
10. View the amount of disk space that will be saved if you deduplicate the directory.
The number of blocks that will be deduplicated is displayed in the Deduped blocks field.

Related concepts
Deduplication jobs

Specify deduplication settings

You can specify which directories you want to deduplicate.
1. Click File System > Deduplication > Settings.
2. In the Deduplication Settings area, click Browse and select a directory that you want to deduplicate.
3. Optional: Specify additional directories.
a. Click Add another directory path.
b. Click Browse and select a directory that you want to deduplicate.
4. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Deduplication jobs

Start or schedule a deduplication job

You can manually start a deduplication job or specify a repeating schedule for the job to run automatically.
It is recommended that you run the Dedupe job once every 10 days. The first deduplication that you run on the cluster might
take significantly longer to complete than subsequent deduplication jobs.
WARNING: Use caution when setting the Dedupe default impact policy value to HIGH. Setting the default
impact policy to HIGH can have a significant impact on system performance. If you set the value to HIGH when

Deduplication with SmartDedupe 237

 scheduling a Dedupe job, ensure that you set it back to the default impact policy value of LOW after completing
the job.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types list, locate the Dedupe job, and then click View/Edit.
The View Job Type Details dialog box appears.
3. Click Edit Job Type.
The Edit Job Type Details dialog box appears
4. Specify the job controls as follows:

Option Description
Enable this job Select to enable the job type.
type
Default Priority Set the job priority as compared to other system maintenance jobs that run at the same time. Job priority
is denoted as 1-10, with 1 being the highest and 10 being the lowest. The default value is 4.
Default Impact Select the amount of system resources that the job uses compared to other system maintenance jobs
Policy that run at the same time. Select a policy value of HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, or OFF-HOURS. The default is
LOW.

Schedule Specify whether the job must be manually started or runs on a regularly scheduled basis. When you
click Scheduled, you can specify a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule. For most clusters, it is
recommended that you run the Dedupe job once every 10 days.
5. Click Save Changes, and then click Close.
The new job controls are saved and the dialog box closes.
6. Click Start Job.
The Dedupe job runs with the new job controls.

View deduplication space savings

You can view the amount of disk space that you are currently saving with deduplication.
1. Click File System > Deduplication > Summary.
2. In the Deduplication Savings area, view the amount of disk space saved.

Related references
Deduplication information

View a deduplication report

After a deduplication job completes, you can view information about the job in a deduplication report.
1. Click File System > Deduplication > Summary.
2. In the Deduplication Reports or Deduplication Assessment Reports section, locate the report that you want to view, and
then click View Report.

Related references
Deduplication job report information

Deduplication job report information

You can view the following deduplication specific information in deduplication job reports:

Start time The time the deduplication job started.

End time The time the deduplication job ended.

238 Deduplication with SmartDedupe

Iteration Count The number of times that SmartDedupe interrupted the sampling process. If SmartDedupe is sampling
a large amount of data, SmartDedupe might interrupt sampling in order to start deduplicating the data.
After SmartDedupe finishes deduplicating the sampled data, SmartDedupe will continue sampling the
remaining data.
Scanned blocks The total number of blocks located underneath the specified deduplicated directories.
Sampled blocks The number of blocks that SmartDedupe created index entries for.
Deduped blocks The number of blocks that were deduplicated.
Dedupe percent The percentage of scanned blocks that were deduplicated.
Created dedupe The total number of deduplication requests created. A deduplication request is created for each matching
requests pair of data blocks. For example, if you have 3 data blocks that all match, SmartDedupe creates 2
requests. One of the requests could pair file1 and file2 together and the other request could pair file2 and
file3 together.
Successful The number of deduplication requests that completed successfully.
dedupe requests
Failed dedupe The number of deduplication requests that failed. If a deduplication request fails, it doesn't mean that the
requests job failed too. A deduplication request can fail for any number of reasons. For example, the file might have
been modified since it was sampled.
Skipped files The number of files that were not scanned by the deduplication job. SmartDedupe skips files for a number
of reasons. For example, SmartDedupe skips files that have already been scanned and haven't been
modified since. SmartDedupe also skips all files that are smaller than 4 KB.
Index entries The number of entries that currently exist in the index.
Index lookup The total number of lookups that have been done by earlier deduplication jobs plus the number of lookups
attempts done by this deduplication job. A lookup is when the deduplication job attempts to match a block that was
indexed with a block that hasn't been indexed.
Index lookup hits The number of blocks that matched index entries.

Related tasks
View a deduplication report

Deduplication information
You can view the amount of disk space saved by deduplication in the Deduplication Savings area:

Space Savings The total amount of physical disk space saved by deduplication, including protection overhead and
metadata. For example, if you have three identical files that are all 5 GB, the estimated physical saving
would be greater than 10 GB, because deduplication saved space that would have been occupied by file
metadata and protection overhead.
Deduplicated The amount of space on the cluster occupied by directories that were deduplicated.
data
Other data The amount of space on the cluster occupied by directories that were not deduplicated.

Related tasks
View deduplication space savings

Deduplication with SmartDedupe 239

 15
Data replication with SyncIQ
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• SyncIQ data replication overview
• Replication policies and jobs
• Replication snapshots
• Data failover and failback with SyncIQ
• Recovery times and objectives for SyncIQ
• Replication policy priority
• SyncIQ license functionality
• Replication for nodes with multiple interfaces
• Restrict SyncIQ source nodes
• Creating replication policies
• Managing replication to remote clusters
• Initiating data failover and failback with SyncIQ
• Performing disaster recovery for older SmartLock directories
• Managing replication policies
• Managing replication to the local cluster
• Managing replication performance rules
• Managing replication reports
• Managing failed replication jobs

SyncIQ data replication overview

OneFS enables you to replicate data from one PowerScale cluster to another through the SyncIQ software module. Activate a
SyncIQ license on both PowerScale clusters before you can replicate data between them.
You can replicate data at the directory level while optionally excluding specific files and subdirectories from being replicated.
SyncIQ creates and references snapshots to replicate a consistent point-in-time image of a source directory. Metadata, such as
access control lists (ACL) and alternate data streams (ADS), are replicated along with data.
SyncIQ enables you to maintain a consistent replica of your data on another PowerScale cluster and to control the frequency of
data replication. For example, you could configure SyncIQ to back up data from your primary cluster to a secondary cluster once
a day at 10 PM. Depending on the size of your dataset, the first replication operation could take considerable time. After that,
however, replication operations would complete more quickly.
SyncIQ also offers automated failover and failback capabilities so that you can continue operations on the secondary
PowerScale cluster should your primary cluster become unavailable.

Replication policies and jobs

Data replication is coordinated according to replication policies and replication jobs. Replication policies specify what data is
replicated, where the data is replicated to, and how often the data is replicated. Replication jobs are the operations that
replicate data from one PowerScale cluster to another. SyncIQ generates replication jobs according to replication policies.
A replication policy specifies two clusters: the source and the target. The cluster on which the replication policy exists is
the source cluster. The cluster that data is being replicated to is the target cluster. When a replication policy starts, SyncIQ
generates a replication job for the policy. When a replication job runs, files from a directory tree on the source cluster are
replicated to a directory tree on the target cluster; these directory trees are known as source and target directories.

240 Data replication with SyncIQ

After the first replication job created by a replication policy finishes, the target directory and all files contained in the target
directory are set to a read-only state, and can be modified only by other replication jobs belonging to the same replication policy.
We recommend that you do not create more than 1,000 policies on a cluster.

NOTE: To prevent permissions errors, make sure that ACL policy settings are the same across source and target clusters.

You can create two types of replication policies: synchronization policies and copy policies. A synchronization policy maintains an
exact replica of the source directory on the target cluster. If a file or sub-directory is deleted from the source directory, the file
or directory is deleted from the target cluster when the policy is run again.
You can use synchronization policies to fail over and fail back data between source and target clusters. When a source cluster
becomes unavailable, you can fail over data on a target cluster and make the data available to clients. When the source cluster
becomes available again, you can fail back the data to the source cluster.
A copy policy maintains recent versions of the files that are stored on the source cluster. However, files that are deleted on
the source cluster are not deleted from the target cluster. Failback is not supported for copy policies. Copy policies are most
commonly used for archival purposes.
Copy policies enable you to remove files from the source cluster without losing those files on the target cluster. Deleting files on
the source cluster improves performance on the source cluster while maintaining the deleted files on the target cluster. This can
be useful if, for example, your source cluster is being used for production purposes and your target cluster is being used only for
archiving.
After creating a job for a replication policy, SyncIQ must wait until the job completes before it can create another job for the
policy. Any number of replication jobs can exist on a cluster at a given time; however, no more than 50 replication jobs can run
on a source cluster at the same time. If more than 50 replication jobs exist on a cluster, the first 50 jobs run while the others are
queued to run.
There is no limit to the number of replication jobs that a target cluster can support concurrently. However, because more
replication jobs require more cluster resources, replication will slow down as more concurrent jobs are added.
When a replication job runs, OneFS generates workers on the source and target cluster. Workers on the source cluster read and
send data while workers on the target cluster receive and write data.
You can replicate any number of files and directories with a single replication job. You can prevent a large replication job from
overwhelming the system by limiting the amount of cluster resources and network bandwidth that data synchronization is
allowed to consume. Because each node in a cluster is able to send and receive data, the speed at which data is replicated
increases for larger clusters.

Related concepts
Creating replication policies

SmartLock considerations for SyncIQ

There are restrictions for using SyncIQ policies with SmartLock directories. These restrictions apply to both compliance and
enterprise SmartLock directories.
The restrictions are:
● There can be only one SmartLock directory for each SyncIQ policy.
● Do not create SmartLock directories in /ifs or /ifs/data.
● The SmartLock directory and the SyncIQ policy directory must be configured at the same root directory level.
For example, if the SyncIQ policy root directory is /ifs/data/home, you create the SmartLock directory in that same root
directory: /ifs/data/home.

Automated replication policies

You can manually start a replication policy at any time. You can also configure replication policies to start automatically based on
source directory modifications or schedules.
You can configure a replication policy to run according to a schedule so that you can control when replication is performed. You
can also configure policies to replicate the data captured in snapshots of a directory. You can also configure a replication policy
to start when SyncIQ detects a modification to the source directory. Such a policy allows SyncIQ to maintain a more current
version of your data on the target cluster.
Scheduling a policy can be useful under the following conditions:

Data replication with SyncIQ 241

● You want to replicate data when user activity is minimal.
● You can accurately predict when modifications are made to the data.
A scheduled policy can be reconfigured so that it does not run if there are no changes to the source directory between jobs.
However, if changes are made to the parent directory of the source directory or a sibling directory of the source directory, and
then a snapshot of the parent directory is taken, SyncIQ creates a job for the policy even if no changes have been made to the
source directory. If you monitor the cluster through the File System Analytics (FSA) feature of InsightIQ, the FSA job creates
snapshots of /ifs. This process might cause a replication job to start whenever the FSA job is run.
Replicating data that is contained in snapshots of a directory can be useful under the following conditions:
● You want to replicate data according to a schedule, and you are already generating snapshots of the source directory
through a snapshot schedule.
● You want to maintain identical snapshots on both the source and target cluster.
● You want to replicate existing snapshots to the target cluster.
To enable archival snapshots on the target cluster. This setting can only be enabled when the policy is created.

If a policy is configured to replicate snapshots, you can configure SyncIQ to replicate only snapshots that match a specified
naming pattern.
Configuring a policy to start when changes are made to the source directory can be useful under the following conditions:
● You want to retain an up-to-date copy of your data always.
● You are expecting many changes at unpredictable intervals.
For policies that are configured to start whenever changes are made to the source directory, SyncIQ checks the source
directories every ten seconds. SyncIQ checks all files and directories underneath the source directory, regardless of whether
those files or directories are excluded from replication. Consequently, SyncIQ might occasionally run a replication job
unnecessarily. For example, assume that newPolicy replicates /ifs/data/media but excludes /ifs/data/media/temp. If
a modification is made to /ifs/data/media/temp/file.txt, SyncIQ runs newPolicy even though /ifs/data/media/
temp/file.txt is not replicated.
If a policy is configured to start whenever changes are made to the source directory and a replication job fails, SyncIQ waits
one minute before attempting to run the policy again. SyncIQ increases this delay exponentially for each failure up to a maximum
of eight hours. You can override the delay by running the policy manually at any time. After a job for the policy completes
successfully, SyncIQ will resume checking the source directory every ten seconds.
If a policy is configured to start whenever changes are made to the source directory, you can configure SyncIQ to wait a
specified period after the source directory is modified before starting a job.
NOTE: To avoid frequent synchronization of minimal sets of changes and overtaxing system resources, you should not
configure continuous replication when the source directory is highly active. It is better to configure continuous replication
with a change-triggered delay of several hours to consolidate groups of changes.

Source and target cluster association

SyncIQ associates a replication policy with a target cluster by marking the target cluster when the job runs for the first time.
Even if you modify the name or IP address of the target cluster, the mark persists on the target cluster. When a replication
policy is run, SyncIQ checks the mark to ensure that data is being replicated to the correct location.
On the target cluster, you can manually break an association between a replication policy and target directory. Breaking the
association between a source and target cluster causes the mark on the target cluster to be deleted. You might want to
manually break a target association if an association is obsolete. If you break the association of a policy, the policy is disabled
on the source cluster and you cannot run the policy. If you want to run the disabled policy again, you must reset the replication
policy.
Breaking a policy association causes either a full replication or differential replication to occur the next time you run the
replication policy. During a full or differential replication, SyncIQ creates a new association between the source and target
clusters. Depending on the amount of data being replicated, a full or differential replication can take a very long time to
complete.
CAUTION: Changes to the configuration of the target cluster outside of SyncIQ can introduce an error condition
that effectively breaks the association between the source and target cluster. For example, changing the DNS
record of the target cluster could cause this problem. If you need to make significant configuration changes to
the target cluster outside of SyncIQ, make sure that your SyncIQ policies can still connect to the target cluster.

242 Data replication with SyncIQ

Configuring SyncIQ source and target clusters with NAT
Source and target clusters can use NAT (network address translation) for SyncIQ failover and failback purposes, but must be
configured appropriately.
In this scenario, source and target clusters are typically at different physical locations, use private, non-routable address space,
and do not have direct connections to the Internet. Each cluster typically is assigned a range of private IP addresses. For
example, a cluster with 12 nodes might be assigned IP addresses 192.168.10.11 to 192.168.10.22.
To communicate over the public Internet, source and target clusters must have all incoming and outgoing data packets
appropriately translated and redirected by a NAT-enabled firewall or router.
CAUTION: SyncIQ data is not encrypted by default. Running SyncIQ jobs over the public Internet provides no
protection against data theft.
SyncIQ enables you to limit replication jobs to particular nodes within your cluster. For example, if your cluster was made up of
12 nodes, you could limit replication jobs to just three of those nodes. For NAT support, you would must establish a one-for-one
association between the source and target clusters. So, if you are limiting replication jobs to three nodes on your source cluster,
you must associate three nodes on your target cluster.
In this instance, you would need to configure static NAT, sometimes referred to as inbound mapping. On both the source and
target clusters, for the private address assigned to each node, you would associate a static NAT address. For example:

Source cluster Target Cluster

Node name Private address NAT address Node name Private address NAT address
source-1 192.168.10.11 10.8.8.201 target-1 192.168.55.101 10.1.2.11
source-2 192.168.10.12 10.8.8.202 target-2 192.168.55.102 10.1.2.12
source-3 192.168.10.13 10.8.8.203 target-3 192.168.55.103 10.1.2.13

To configure static NAT, you would must edit the /etc/local/hosts file on all six nodes, and associate them with their
counterparts by adding the appropriate NAT address and node name. For example, in the /etc/local/hosts file on the three
nodes of the source cluster, the entries would look like:

10.1.2.11 target-1

10.1.2.12 target-2

10.1.2.13 target-3

Similarly, on the three nodes of the target cluster, you would edit the /etc/local/hosts file, and insert the NAT address
and name of the associated node on the source cluster. For example, on the three nodes of the target cluster, the entries would
look like:

10.8.8.201 source-1

10.8.8.202 source-2

10.8.8.203 source-3

When the NAT server receives packets of SyncIQ data from a node on the source cluster, the NAT server replaces the packet
headers and the node's port number and internal IP address with the NAT server's own port number and external IP address.
The NAT server on the source network then sends the packets through the Internet to the target network, where another NAT
server performs a similar process to transmit the data to the target node. The process is reversed when the data fails back.
With this type of configuration, SyncIQ can determine the correct addresses to connect with, so that SyncIQ can send and
receive data. In this scenario, no SmartConnect zone configuration is required.
For information about the ports used by SyncIQ, see the OneFS Security Configuration Guide for your OneFS version.

Full and differential replication

If a replication policy encounters an issue that cannot be fixed (for example, if the association was broken on the target cluster),
you might need to reset the replication policy. If you reset a replication policy, SyncIQ performs either a full replication or a
differential replication the next time the policy is run. You can specify the type of replication that SyncIQ performs.

Data replication with SyncIQ 243

During a full replication, SyncIQ transfers all data from the source cluster regardless of what data exists on the target cluster.
A full replication consumes large amounts of network bandwidth and can take a very long time to complete. However, a full
replication is less strenuous on CPU usage than a differential replication.
During a differential replication, SyncIQ first checks whether a file already exists on the target cluster and then transfers
only data that does not already exist on the target cluster. A differential replication consumes less network bandwidth than
a full replication; however, differential replications consume more CPU. Differential replication can be much faster than a full
replication if there is an adequate amount of available CPU for the replication job to consume.

Related tasks
Perform a full or differential replication

Controlling replication job resource consumption

You can create rules that limit the network traffic created by replication jobs, the rate at which files are sent by replication jobs,
the percent of CPU used by replication jobs, and the number of workers created for replication jobs.
If you limit the percentage of total workers that SyncIQ can create, the limit is applied to the total amount of workers that
SyncIQ could create, which is determined by cluster hardware. Workers on the source cluster read and send data while workers
on the target cluster receive and write data.
NOTE: File-operation rules might not work accurately for files that can take more than a second to transfer and for files
that are not predictably similar in size.

Related concepts
Managing replication performance rules

Replication policy priority

When creating a replication policy, you can configure a policy to have priority over other jobs.
If multiple replication jobs are queued to be run because the maximum number of jobs are already running, jobs created by
policies with priority will be run before jobs without priorities. For example, assume that 50 jobs are currently running. A job
without priority is the created and queued to run; next, a job with priority is created and queued to run. The job with priority will
run next, even though the job without priority has been queued for a longer period of time.
SyncIQ will also pause replication jobs without priority to allow jobs with priority to run. For example, assume that 50 jobs
are already running, and one of them does not have priority. If a replication job with priority is created, SyncIQ will pause the
replication job without priority and run the job with priority.

Replication reports
After a replication job completes, SyncIQ generates a replication report that contains detailed information about the job,
including how long the job ran, how much data was transferred, and what errors occurred.
If a replication report is interrupted, SyncIQ might create a subreport about the progress of the job so far. If the job is then
restarted, SyncIQ creates another subreport about the progress of the job until the job either completes or is interrupted again.
SyncIQ creates a subreport each time the job is interrupted until the job completes successfully. If multiple subreports are
created for a job, SyncIQ combines the information from the subreports into a single report.
SyncIQ routinely deletes replication reports. You can specify the maximum number of replication reports that SyncIQ retains and
the length of time that SyncIQ retains replication reports. If the maximum number of replication reports is exceeded on a cluster,
SyncIQ deletes the oldest report each time a new report is created.
You cannot customize the content of a replication report.

NOTE: If you delete a replication policy, SyncIQ automatically deletes any reports that were generated for that policy.

Related concepts
Managing replication reports

244 Data replication with SyncIQ

Replication snapshots
SyncIQ generates snapshots to facilitate replication, failover, and failback between PowerScale clusters. Snapshots generated
by SyncIQ can also be used for archival purposes on the target cluster.

Source cluster snapshots

SyncIQ generates snapshots on the source cluster to ensure that a consistent point-in-time image is replicated and that
unaltered data is not sent to the target cluster.
Before running a replication job, SyncIQ creates a snapshot of the source directory. SyncIQ then replicates data according to
the snapshot rather than the current state of the cluster, allowing users to modify source directory files while ensuring that an
exact point-in-time image of the source directory is replicated.
For example, if a replication job of /ifs/data/dir/ starts at 1:00 PM and finishes at 1:20 PM, and /ifs/data/dir/file
is modified at 1:10 PM, the modifications are not reflected on the target cluster, even if /ifs/data/dir/file is not
replicated until 1:15 PM.
You can replicate data according to a snapshot generated with the SnapshotIQ software module. If you replicate data according
to a SnapshotIQ snapshot, SyncIQ does not generate another snapshot of the source directory. This method can be useful if you
want to replicate identical copies of data to multiple PowerScale clusters.
SyncIQ generates source snapshots to ensure that replication jobs do not transfer unmodified data. When a job is created for a
replication policy, SyncIQ checks whether it is the first job created for the policy. If it is not the first job created for the policy,
SyncIQ compares the snapshot generated for the earlier job with the snapshot generated for the new job.
SyncIQ replicates only data that has changed since the last time a snapshot was generated for the replication policy. When a
replication job is completed, SyncIQ deletes the previous source-cluster snapshot and retains the most recent snapshot until the
next job is run.

Target cluster snapshots

When a replication job is run, SyncIQ generates a snapshot on the target cluster to facilitate failover operations. When the next
replication job is created for the replication policy, the job creates a new snapshot and deletes the old one.
If a SnapshotIQ license has been activated on the target cluster, you can configure a replication policy to generate additional
snapshots that remain on the target cluster even as subsequent replication jobs run.
SyncIQ generates target snapshots to facilitate failover on the target cluster regardless of whether a SnapshotIQ license has
been configured on the target cluster. Failover snapshots are generated when a replication job completes. SyncIQ retains only
one failover snapshot per replication policy, and deletes the old snapshot after the new snapshot is created.
If a SnapshotIQ license has been activated on the target cluster, you can configure SyncIQ to generate archival snapshots on
the target cluster that are not automatically deleted when subsequent replication jobs run. Archival snapshots contain the same
data as the snapshots that are generated for failover purposes. However, you can configure how long archival snapshots are
retained on the target cluster. You can access archival snapshots the same way that you access other snapshots generated on a
cluster.

Data failover and failback with SyncIQ

SyncIQ enables you to perform automated data failover and failback operations between PowerScale clusters. If your primary
cluster goes offline, you can fail over to a secondary PowerScale cluster, enabling clients to continue accessing their data. If the
primary cluster becomes operational again, you can fail back to the primary cluster.
For the purposes of SyncIQ failover and failback, the cluster originally accessed by clients is referred to as the primary cluster.
The cluster that client data is replicated to is referred to as the secondary cluster.
Failover is the process that allows clients to access, view, modify, and delete data on a secondary cluster. Failback is the
process that allows clients to resume their workflow on the primary cluster. During failback, any changes made to data on the
secondary cluster are copied back to the primary cluster by means of a replication job using a mirror policy.
Failover and failback can be useful in disaster recovery scenarios. For example, if a primary cluster is damaged by a natural
disaster, you can migrate clients to a secondary cluster where they can continue normal operations. When the primary cluster is
repaired and back online, you can migrate clients back to operations on the primary cluster.

Data replication with SyncIQ 245

You can fail over and fail back to facilitate scheduled cluster maintenance, as well. For example, if you are upgrading the primary
cluster, you might want to migrate clients to a secondary cluster until the upgrade is complete and then migrate clients back to
the primary cluster.
NOTE: Data failover and failback is supported both for enterprise and compliance SmartLock directories. Compliance
SmartLock directories adhere to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation 17a-4(f), which requires
securities brokers and dealers to preserve records in a non-rewritable, non-erasable format. SyncIQ properly maintains
compliance with the 17a-4(f) regulation during failover and failback.

Related concepts
Initiating data failover and failback with SyncIQ

Data failover
Failover is the process of preparing data on a secondary cluster and switching over to the secondary cluster for normal client
operations. After you fail over to a secondary cluster, you can direct clients to access, view, and modify their data on the
secondary cluster.
Before failover is performed, you must create and run a SyncIQ replication policy on the primary cluster. You initiate the failover
process on the secondary cluster. To migrate data from the primary cluster that is spread across multiple replication policies,
you must initiate failover for each replication policy.
If the action of a replication policy is set to copy, any file that was deleted on the primary cluster will still be present on the
secondary cluster. When the client connects to the secondary cluster, all files that were deleted on the primary cluster will be
available.
If you initiate failover for a replication policy while an associated replication job is running, the failover operation completes
but the replication job fails. Because data might be in an inconsistent state, SyncIQ uses the snapshot generated by the last
successful replication job to revert data on the secondary cluster to the last recovery point.
If a disaster occurs on the primary cluster, any modifications to data that were made after the last successful replication job
started are not reflected on the secondary cluster. When a client connects to the secondary cluster, their data appears as it was
when the last successful replication job was started.

Related tasks
Fail over data to a secondary cluster

Data failback
Failback is the process of restoring primary and secondary clusters to the roles that they occupied before a failover operation.
After failback is complete, the primary cluster holds the latest data set and resumes normal operations, including hosting clients
and replicating data to the secondary cluster through SyncIQ replication policies in place.
The first step in the failback process is updating the primary cluster with all of the modifications that were made to the data on
the secondary cluster. The next step is preparing the primary cluster to be accessed by clients. The final step is resuming data
replication from the primary to the secondary cluster. At the end of the failback process, you can redirect users to resume data
access on the primary cluster.
To update the primary cluster with the modifications that were made on the secondary cluster, SyncIQ must create a SyncIQ
domain for the source directory.
You can fail back data with any replication policy that meets all of the following criteria:
● The policy has been failed over.
● The policy is a synchronization policy (not a copy policy).
● The policy does not exclude any files or directories from replication.

Related tasks
Fail back data to a primary cluster

246 Data replication with SyncIQ

SmartLock compliance mode failover and failback
Using OneFS 8.0.1 and later releases, you can replicate SmartLock compliance mode domains to a target cluster. This support
includes failover and failback of these SmartLock domains.
Because SmartLock compliance mode adheres to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation 17a-4(f),
failover and failback of a compliance mode WORM domain requires some planning and setup.
Most importantly, both your primary (source) and secondary (target) clusters must be configured at initial setup as compliance
mode clusters. This process is described in the PowerScale installation guide for your node model (for example, the Generation 6
Installation Guide).
In addition, both clusters must have directories defined as WORM domains with the compliance type. For example, if you are
storing your WORM files in the SmartLock compliance domain /ifs/financial-records/locked on the primary cluster,
you must have a SmartLock compliance domain on the target cluster to fail over to. Although the source and target SmartLock
compliance domains can have the same pathname, this is not required.
In addition, you must start the compliance clock on both clusters.
SyncIQ handles conflicts during failover/failback operations on a SmartLock compliance mode domain by unlinking committed
files from the user store and leaving a link of the file in the compliance store. The ComplianceStoreDelete job automatically
tracks and removes expired files from the compliance store if they were put there as a result of SyncIQ conflict resolution. The
job runs automatically once per month or when started manually. For information about how to start the ComplianceStoreDelete
job, see the PowerScale OneFS CLI Administration Guide.

SmartLock replication limitations

Be aware of the limitations of replicating and failing back SmartLock directories with SyncIQ.
If the source directory or target directory of a SyncIQ policy is a SmartLock directory, replication and failback might not be
allowed. For more information, see the following table:

Source directory type Target directory type Replication Allowed Failback allowed
Non-SmartLock Non-SmartLock Yes Yes
Non-SmartLock SmartLock enterprise Yes Yes, unless files are committed to a
WORM state on the target cluster
Non-SmartLock SmartLock compliance No No
SmartLock enterprise Non-SmartLock Yes; however, retention Yes; however, the files do not have
dates and commit WORM status
status of files are lost.
SmartLock enterprise SmartLock enterprise Yes Yes; any newly committed WORM
files are included
SmartLock enterprise SmartLock compliance No No
SmartLock compliance Non-SmartLock No No
SmartLock compliance SmartLock enterprise No No
SmartLock compliance SmartLock compliance Yes Yes; any newly committed WORM
files are included

If you are replicating a SmartLock directory to another SmartLock directory, you must create the target SmartLock directory
prior to running the replication policy. Although OneFS creates a target directory automatically if a target directory does not
already exist, OneFS does not create a target SmartLock directory automatically. If you attempt to replicate an enterprise
directory before the target directory has been created, OneFS creates a non-SmartLock target directory and the replication job
succeeds. If you replicate a compliance directory before the target directory has been created, the replication job fails.
If you replicate SmartLock directories to another PowerScale cluster with SyncIQ, the WORM state of files is replicated.
However, SmartLock directory configuration settings are not transferred to the target directory.
For example, if you replicate a directory that contains a committed file that is set to expire on March 4th, the file is still set
to expire on March 4th on the target cluster. However, if the directory on the source cluster is set to prevent files from being
committed for more than a year, the target directory is not automatically set to the same restriction.

Data replication with SyncIQ 247

In the scenario where a WORM exclusion domain has been created on an enterprise mode or compliance mode directory,
replication of the SmartLock exclusion on the directory occurs only if the SyncIQ policy is rooted at the SmartLock domain that
contains the exclusion. If this condition is not met, only data is replicated, and the SmartLock exclusion is not created on the
target directory.

Recovery times and objectives for SyncIQ

The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are measurements of the impacts that a disaster
can have on business operations. You can calculate your RPO and RTO for a disaster recovery with replication policies.
RPO is the maximum amount of time for which data is lost if a cluster suddenly becomes unavailable. For a PowerScale cluster,
the RPO is the amount of time that has passed since the last completed replication job started. The RPO is never greater than
the time it takes for two consecutive replication jobs to run and complete.
If a disaster occurs while a replication job is running, the data on the secondary cluster is reverted to the state it was in when
the last replication job completed. For example, consider an environment in which a replication policy is scheduled to run every
three hours, and replication jobs take two hours to complete. If a disaster occurs an hour after a replication job begins, the RPO
is four hours, because it has been four hours since a completed job began replicating data.
RTO is the maximum amount of time required to make backup data available to clients after a disaster. The RTO is always less
than or approximately equal to the RPO, depending on the rate at which replication jobs are created for a given policy.
If replication jobs run continuously, meaning that another replication job is created for the policy before the previous replication
job completes, the RTO is approximately equal to the RPO. When the secondary cluster is failed over, the data on the cluster is
reset to the state it was in when the last job completed; resetting the data takes an amount of time proportional to the time it
took users to modify the data.
If replication jobs run on an interval, meaning that there is a period of time after a replication job completes before the next
replication job for the policy starts, the relationship between RTO and RPO depends on whether a replication job is running
when the disaster occurs. If a job is in progress when a disaster occurs, the RTO is roughly equal to the RPO. However, if a
job is not running when a disaster occurs, the RTO is negligible because the secondary cluster was not modified since the last
replication job ran, and the failover process is almost instantaneous.

RPO Alerts
You can configure SyncIQ to create OneFS events that alert you to the fact that a specified Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
has been exceeded. You can view these events through the same interface as other OneFS events.
The events have an event ID of 400040020. The event message for these alerts follows the following format:

SW_SIQ_RPO_EXCEEDED: SyncIQ RPO exceeded for policy <replication_policy>

For example, assume you set an RPO of 5 hours; a job starts at 1:00 PM and completes at 3:00 PM; a second job starts at 3:30
PM; if the second job does not complete by 6:00 PM, SyncIQ creates a OneFS event.
You can enable RPO alert for SyncIQ policies including the preferred frequency so that you get alerts when the SyncIQ job fails
to meet the RPO criteria.

Replication policy priority

When creating a replication policy, you can configure a policy to have priority over other jobs.
If multiple replication jobs are queued to be run because the maximum number of jobs are already running, jobs created by
policies with priority will be run before jobs without priorities. For example, assume that 50 jobs are currently running. A job
without priority is the created and queued to run; next, a job with priority is created and queued to run. The job with priority will
run next, even though the job without priority has been queued for a longer period of time.
SyncIQ will also pause replication jobs without priority to allow jobs with priority to run. For example, assume that 50 jobs
are already running, and one of them does not have priority. If a replication job with priority is created, SyncIQ will pause the
replication job without priority and run the job with priority.

248 Data replication with SyncIQ

SyncIQ license functionality
You can replicate data to another PowerScale cluster only if you activate a SyncIQ license on both the local cluster and the
target cluster.
If a SyncIQ license becomes inactive, you cannot create, run, or manage replication policies. Also, all previously created
replication policies are disabled. Replication policies that target the local cluster are also disabled. However, data that was
previously replicated to the local cluster is still available.

Replication for nodes with multiple interfaces

You can force replication and restrict target network settings to use only when specified pools or interfaces are selected.
If you create a policy and specify a particular SmartConnect IP pool, SyncIQ traffic is restricted to the nodes that participate in
that pool. It does not restrict the network ports that the pool uses. This situation can result in SyncIQ traffic using the correct
nodes, but the wrong ports.
You can force the policy to use only the ports in a specified pool for both source and target clusters using the command-line
interface.

Restrict SyncIQ source nodes

You can restrict SyncIQ to use the interfaces in the specified IP address pool using the command-line interface.
SyncIQ uses the front-end network ports of a node to send replication data from the source to the target cluster. By default,
SyncIQ policies use all nodes and interfaces to allow for maximum throughput of a given policy. However, you may want to
exclude certain nodes from a SyncIQ policy. Excluding nodes from a SyncIQ policy is beneficial for larger clusters where data
replication jobs can be assigned to certain nodes.
By selecting a predefined IP address pool, you can restrict replication processing to specific nodes on the source cluster. This
option is useful to ensure that replication jobs are not competing with other applications for specific node resources. Specifying
the IP address pool allows you to define which networks are used for replication data transfer.
By default, SyncIQ uses all interfaces in the nodes that belong to the IP address pool, disregarding any interface membership
settings in the pool.
You must use the force replication and restrict target network options together to tie traffic from the source to the correct
interface.

NOTE: SyncIQ only allows source node restrictions on subnets and pools from the default groupnet.

Creating replication policies

You can create replication policies that determine when data is replicated with SyncIQ.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Excluding directories in replication

You can exclude directories from being replicated by replication policies even if the directories exist under the specified source
directory.
NOTE: Failback is not supported for replication policies that exclude directories.

By default, all files and directories under the source directory of a replication policy are replicated to the target cluster.
However, you can prevent directories under the source directory from being replicated.

Data replication with SyncIQ 249

If you specify a directory to exclude, files and directories under the excluded directory are not replicated to the target cluster. If
you specify a directory to include, only the files and directories under the included directory are replicated to the target cluster;
any directories that are not contained in an included directory are excluded.
If you both include and exclude directories, any excluded directories must be contained in one of the included directories;
otherwise, the excluded-directory setting has no effect. For example, consider a policy with the following settings:
● The root directory is /ifs/data
● The included directories are /ifs/data/media/music and /ifs/data/media/movies
● The excluded directories are /ifs/data/archive and /ifs/data/media/music/working
In this example, the setting that excludes the /ifs/data/archive directory has no effect because the /ifs/data/
archive directory is not under either of the included directories. The /ifs/data/archive directory is not replicated
regardless of whether the directory is explicitly excluded. However, the setting that excludes the /ifs/data/media/music/
working directory does have an effect, because the directory would be replicated if the setting was not specified.
In addition, if you exclude a directory that contains the source directory, the exclude-directory setting has no effect. For
example, if the root directory of a policy is /ifs/data, explicitly excluding the /ifs directory does not prevent /ifs/data
from being replicated.
Any directories that you explicitly include or exclude must be contained in or under the specified root directory. For example,
consider a policy in which the specified root directory is /ifs/data. In this example, you could include both the /ifs/data/
media and the /ifs/data/users/ directories because they are under /ifs/data.
Excluding directories from a synchronization policy does not cause the directories to be deleted on the target cluster. For
example, consider a replication policy that synchronizes /ifs/data on the source cluster to /ifs/data on the target cluster.
If the policy excludes /ifs/data/media from replication, and /ifs/data/media/file exists on the target cluster,
running the policy does not cause /ifs/data/media/file to be deleted from the target cluster.

Related tasks
Specify source directories and files

Excluding files in replication

If you do not want specific files to be replicated by a replication policy, you can exclude them from the replication process
through file-matching criteria statements. You can configure file-matching criteria statements during the replication-policy
creation process.
NOTE: You cannot fail back replication policies that exclude files.

A file-criteria statement can include one or more elements. Each file-criteria element contains a file attribute, a comparison
operator, and a comparison value. You can combine multiple criteria elements in a criteria statement with Boolean "AND" and
"OR" operators. You can configure any number of file-criteria definitions.
Configuring file-criteria statements can cause the associated jobs to run slowly. It is recommended that you specify file-criteria
statements in a replication policy only if necessary.
Modifying a file-criteria statement will cause a full replication to occur the next time that a replication policy is started.
Depending on the amount of data being replicated, a full replication can take a very long time to complete.
For synchronization policies, if you modify the comparison operators or comparison values of a file attribute, and a file no longer
matches the specified file-matching criteria, the file is deleted from the target the next time the job is run. This rule does not
apply to copy policies.

Related references
File criteria options

Related tasks
Specify source directories and files

250 Data replication with SyncIQ

File criteria options
You can configure a replication policy to exclude files that meet or do not meet specific criteria.
You can specify file criteria based on the following file attributes:

Date created Includes or excludes files based on when the file was created. This option is available for copy policies
only.
You can specify a relative date and time, such as "two weeks ago", or specific date and time, such as
"January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.

Date accessed Includes or excludes files based on when the file was last accessed. This option is available for copy
policies only, and only if the global access-time-tracking option of the cluster is enabled.
You can specify a relative date and time, such as "two weeks ago", or specific date and time, such as
"January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.

Date modified Includes or excludes files based on when the file was last modified. This option is available for copy
policies only.
You can specify a relative date and time, such as "two weeks ago", or specific date and time, such as
"January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.

File name Includes or excludes files based on the file name. You can specify to include or exclude full or partial
names that contain specific text.
The following wildcard characters are accepted:
NOTE: Alternatively, you can filter file names by using POSIX regular-expression (regex) text.
PowerScale clusters support IEEE Std 1003.2 (POSIX.2) regular expressions. For more information
about POSIX regular expressions, see the BSD man pages.

Table 14. Replication file matching wildcards

Wildcard character Description
* Matches any string in place of the asterisk.
For example, m* matches movies and m123.

[ ] Matches any characters contained in the

brackets, or a range of characters separated by a
dash.
For example, b[aei]t matches bat, bet, and
bit.
For example, 1[4-7]2 matches 142, 152, 162,
and 172.
You can exclude characters within brackets by
following the first bracket with an exclamation
mark.
For example, b[!ie] matches bat but not bit
or bet.
You can match a bracket within a bracket if it is
either the first or last character.
For example, [[c]at matches cat and [at.
You can match a dash within a bracket if it is
either the first or last character.
For example, car[-s] matches cars and
car-.

? Matches any character in place of the question

mark.

Data replication with SyncIQ 251

 Table 14. Replication file matching wildcards (continued)
Wildcard character Description

For example, t?p matches tap, tip, and top.

Path Includes or excludes files based on the file path. This option is available for copy policies only.
You can specify to include or exclude full or partial paths that contain specified text. You can also include
the wildcard characters *, ?, and [ ].

Size Includes or excludes files based on their size.

NOTE: File sizes are represented in multiples of 1024, not 1000.

Type Includes or excludes files based on one of the following file-system object types:
● Soft link
● Regular file
● Directory

Related concepts
Excluding files in replication

Related tasks
Specify source directories and files

Configure default replication policy settings

You can configure default settings for replication policies. If you do not modify these settings when creating a replication policy,
the specified default settings are applied.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Settings.
2. In the Default Policy Settings section, if you want policies to connect only to nodes in a specified SmartConnect zone,
select Connect only to the nodes within the target cluster SmartConnect zone.
NOTE: This option will affect only policies that specify the target cluster as a SmartConnect zone.

3. Specify which nodes you want replication policies to connect to when a policy is run.

To connect policies to all nodes on a source Click Run the policy on all nodes in this cluster.
cluster:

To connect policies only to nodes contained in a a. Click Run the policy only on nodes in the specified subnet and
specified subnet and pool: pool.
b. From the Subnet and pool list, select the subnet and pool .

NOTE: SyncIQ does not support dynamically allocated IP address pools. If a replication job connects to a dynamically
allocated IP address, SmartConnect might reassign the address while a replication job is running, which would
disconnect the job and cause it to fail.

4. Click Save Changes.

252 Data replication with SyncIQ

Create a replication policy
You can create a replication policy with SyncIQ that defines how and when data is replicated to another PowerScale cluster.
Configuring a replication policy is a five-step process.
Configure replication policies carefully. If you modify any of the following policy settings after the policy is run, OneFS performs
either a full or differential replication the next time the policy is run:
● Source directory
● Included or excluded directories
● File-criteria statement
● Target cluster name or address
This applies only if you target a different cluster. If you modify the IP or domain name of a target cluster, and then modify
the replication policy on the source cluster to match the new IP or domain name, a full replication is not performed.
● Target directory

NOTE: If you create a replication policy for a SmartLock directory, the SyncIQ and SmartLock compliance domains must be
configured at the same root level. A SmartLock compliance domain cannot be nested inside a SyncIQ domain.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Configure basic policy settings

You must configure basic settings for a replication policy.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. Click Create a SyncIQ policy.
3. In the Settings area, in the Policy name field, type a name for the replication policy.
4. Optional: In the Description field, type a description for the replication policy.
5. For the Action setting, specify the type of replication policy.
● To copy all files from the source directory to the target directory, click Copy.
NOTE: Failback is not supported for copy policies.
● To copy all files from the source directory to the target directory and delete any files on the target directory that are not
in the source directory, click Synchronize.
6. For the Run Job setting, specify when replication jobs run.

Run jobs only when manually Click Manually.

initiated by a user.
Run jobs automatically a. Click On a schedule.
according to a schedule. b. Specify a schedule.
If you configure a replication policy to run more than once a day, you cannot configure
the interval to span across two calendar days. For example, you cannot configure a
replication policy to run every hour starting at 7:00 PM and ending at 1:00 AM.
c. To prevent the policy from being run when the contents of the source directory have
not been modified, click Only run if source directory contents are modified.
d. To create OneFS events if a specified RPO is exceeded, click Send RPO alerts
after... and then specify an RPO.
For example, assume you set an RPO of 5 hours; a job starts at 1:00 PM and
completes at 3:00 PM; a second job starts at 3:30 PM; if the second job does not
complete by 6:00 PM, SyncIQ creates a OneFS event.
NOTE: This option is valid only if RPO alerts have been globally enabled through
SyncIQ settings. The events have an event ID of 400040020.

Data replication with SyncIQ 253

 NOTE: It is recommended that you do not schedule multiple SyncIQ jobs at
the same time, as it might cause performance issues on the cluster. For more
information, see KB article: 000158788

Run jobs automatically every a. Click Whenever the source is modified.

time that a change is made to b. To configure SyncIQ to wait a specified amount of time after the source directory is
the source directory. modified before starting a replication job, click Change-Triggered Sync Job Delay
and then specify a delay.
Runs jobs automatically every a. Click Whenever a snapshot of the source directory is taken.
time that a snapshot is taken of b. To only replicate only data contained in snapshots that match a specific naming
the source directory. pattern, type a snapshot naming pattern into the Run job if snapshot name
matches the following pattern box.
c. Select the Sync existing snapshots before policy creation time check box to
sync existing snapshots by preserving names, creation times, and other parameters.

The next step in creating a replication policy is specifying source directories and files.

Related references
Replication policy settings

Specify source directories and files

You must specify the directories and files you want to replicate.
CAUTION: In a SyncIQ replication policy, OneFS enables you to specify a source directory that is a target
directory, or is contained within a target directory, from a different replication policy. Referred to as cascading
replication, this use case is specifically for backup purposes, and should be used carefully. OneFS does not allow
failback in such cases.
1. In the Source Cluster area, in the Source Root Directory field, type the full path of the source directory that you want to
replicate to the target cluster.
You must specify a directory contained in /ifs. You cannot specify the directory /ifs/.snapshot or a subdirectory of it.

2. Optional: Prevent specific subdirectories of the source directory from being replicated.
● To include a directory, in the Included Directories area, click Add a directory path.
● To exclude a directory, in the Excluded Directories area, click Add a directory path.
3. Optional: Prevent specific files from being replicated by specifying file matching criteria.
a. In the File Matching Criteria area, select a filter type.
b. Select an operator.
c. Type a value.
Files that do not meet the specified criteria will not be replicated to the target cluster. For example, if you specify File
Type doesn't match .txt, SyncIQ will not replicate any files with the .txt file extension. If you specify Created
after 08/14/2013, SyncIQ will not replicate any files created before August 14th, 2013.
If you want to specify more than one file matching criterion, you can control how the criteria relate to each other by clicking
either Add an "Or" condition or Add an "And" condition.

4. Specify which nodes you want the replication policy to connect to when the policy is run.

Connect the policy to all nodes in the source Click Run the policy on all nodes in this cluster.
cluster.

Connect the policy only to nodes contained in a a. Click Run the policy only on nodes in the specified subnet and
specified subnet and pool. pool.
b. From the Subnet and pool list, select the subnet and pool.

254 Data replication with SyncIQ

 NOTE: SyncIQ does not support dynamically allocated IP address pools. If a replication job connects to a dynamically
allocated IP address, SmartConnect might reassign the address while a replication job is running, which would
disconnect the job and cause it to fail.

The next step in the process of creating a replication policy is specifying the target directory.

Related concepts
Excluding directories in replication
Excluding files in replication

Related references
File criteria options
Replication policy settings

Specify the policy target directory

You must specify a target cluster and directory to replicate data to.
1. In the Target Cluster area, in the Target Host field, type one of the following:
● The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of any node in the target cluster.
● The host name of any node in the target cluster.
● The name of a SmartConnect zone in the target cluster.
● The IPv4 or IPv6 address of any node in the target cluster.
● localhost
This will replicate data to another directory on the local cluster.

NOTE: SyncIQ does not support dynamically allocated IP address pools. If a replication job connects to a dynamically
allocated IP address, SmartConnect might reassign the address while a replication job is running, which would
disconnect the job and cause it to fail.

2. In the Target Directory field, type the absolute path of the directory on the target cluster that you want to replicate data
to.
CAUTION:

If you specify an existing directory on the target cluster, make sure that the directory is not the target of
another replication policy. If this is a synchronization policy, make sure that the directory is empty. All files
are deleted from the target of a synchronization policy the first time that the policy is run.
If the specified target directory does not already exist on the target cluster, the directory is created the first time that the
job is run. We recommend that you do not specify the /ifs directory. If you specify the /ifs directory, the entire target
cluster is set to a read-only state, which prevents you from storing any other data on the cluster.
If this is a copy policy, and files in the target directory share the same name as files in the source directory, the target
directory files are overwritten when the job is run.

3. If you want replication jobs to connect only to the nodes included in the SmartConnect zone specified by the target cluster,
click Connect only to the nodes within the target cluster SmartConnect Zone.
The next step in the process of creating a replication policy is to specify policy target snapshot settings.

Related references
Replication policy settings

Data replication with SyncIQ 255

Configure policy target snapshot settings
You can optionally specify how archival snapshots are generated on the target cluster. You can access archival snapshots the
same way that you access SnapshotIQ snapshots.
SyncIQ always retains one snapshot on the target cluster to facilitate failover, regardless of these settings.
1. To create archival snapshots on the target cluster, in the Target Snapshots area, select Enable capture of snapshots on
the target cluster.
2. Optional: To modify the default alias of the last snapshot that is created according to the replication policy, in the Snapshot
Alias Name field, type a new alias.
You can specify the alias name as a snapshot naming pattern. For example, the following naming pattern is valid:

%{PolicyName}-on-%{SrcCluster}-latest

The previous example produces names similar to the following:

newPolicy-on-Cluster1-latest

3. Optional: To modify the snapshot naming pattern for snapshots that are created according to the replication policy, in
the Snapshot Naming Pattern field, type a naming pattern. Each snapshot that is generated for this replication policy is
assigned a name that is based on this pattern.
For example, the following naming pattern is valid:

%{SnapName}-%{SnapCreateTime}

The example produces names similar to the following:

newPolicy-10:30

4. Select one of the following options for how snapshots should expire:
● Click Snapshots do not expire.
● Click Snapshots expire after... and specify an expiration period.
● Click Existing Snapshots Expires to expire the snapshots after a time interval.
NOTE: The target snapshot expire duration is the duration obtained by subtracting the current time from the source
snapshot expiration.
The next step in the process of creating a replication policy is configuring advanced policy settings.

Related references
Replication policy settings

Configure advanced policy settings

You can optionally configure advanced settings for a replication policy.
1. Optional: In the Priority field, specify whether the policy has priority.
Selecting Normal will cause jobs created by the policy not to have priority. Selecting High will give priority to jobs created
by the replication policy.
2. Optional: From the Log Level list, select the level of logging you want SyncIQ to perform for replication jobs.
The following log levels are valid, listed from least to most verbose:
● Fatal
● Error
● Notice
● Info
● Copy
● Debug
● Trace

256 Data replication with SyncIQ

 Replication logs are typically used for debugging purposes. If necessary, you can log in to a node through the command-line
interface and view the contents of the /var/log/isi_migrate.log file on the node.

NOTE: The recommended log level is Notice.

3. Optional: If you want SyncIQ to perform a checksum on each file data packet that is affected by the replication policy, select
the Validate File Integrity check box.
If you enable this option, and the checksum values for a file data packet do not match, SyncIQ retransmits the affected
packet.

4. Optional: To increase the speed of failback for the policy, click Prepare policy for accelerated failback performance.
Selecting this option causes SyncIQ to perform failback configuration tasks the next time that a job is run, rather than
waiting to perform those tasks during the failback process. This will reduce the amount of time needed to perform failback
operations when failback is initiated.
5. Optional: To modify the length of time SyncIQ retains replication reports for the policy, in the Keep Reports For area,
specify a length of time.
After the specified expiration period has passed for a report, SyncIQ automatically deletes the report.
Some units of time are displayed differently when you view a report than how they were originally entered. Entering a
number of days that is equal to a corresponding value in weeks, months, or years results in the larger unit of time being
displayed. For example, if you enter a value of 7 days, 1 week appears for that report after it is created. This change occurs
because SyncIQ internally records report retention times in seconds and then converts them into days, weeks, months, or
years.

6. Optional: Specify whether to record information about files that are deleted by replication jobs by selecting one of the
following options:
● Click Record when a synchronization deletes files or directories.
● Click Do not record when a synchronization deletes files or directories.

This option is applicable for synchronization policies only.

7. Specify how the policy replicates CloudPools SmartLink files.

If set to Deny, SyncIQ replicates all CloudPools SmartLink files to the target cluster as SmartLink files; if the target cluster
does not support CloudPools, the job will fail. If set to Force, SyncIQ replicates all SmartLink files to the target cluster as
regular files. If set to Allow, SyncIQ will attempt to replicate SmartLink files to the target cluster as SmartLink files; if the
target cluster does not support CloudPools, SyncIQ will replicate the SmartLink files as regular files.
The next step in the process of creating a replication policy is saving the replication policy settings.

Related references
Replication policy settings

Save replication policy settings

SyncIQ does not create replication jobs for a replication policy until you save the policy.
Review the current settings of the replication policy. If necessary, modify the policy settings.
In the Create SyncIQ Policy dialog box, after all policy settings are as intended, click Create Policy.

Assess a replication policy

Before running a replication policy for the first time, you can view statistics on the files that would be affected by the replication
without transferring any files. This can be useful if you want to preview the size of the data set that will be transferred if you
run the policy.

NOTE: You can assess only replication policies that have never been run before.

1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.

2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, in the row of a replication policy, from the Actions column, select Assess Sync.

Data replication with SyncIQ 257

3. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Summary.
4. After the job completes, in the SyncIQ Recent Reports table, in the row of the replication job, click View Details.
The report displays the total amount of data that would have been transferred in the Total Data field.

Set RPO alerts for SyncIQ policy

You can enable RPO alerts for a SyncIQ policy, set the alert frequency setting for the policy to receive job failure alerts, and
apply the same setting across all policies.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Settings tab.
The Edit SyncIQ settings area appears.
3. Under the Global settings area, select Enable RPO alert checkbox.
4. Under Default RPO Alert Preferences, click Send RPO alerts after...
You can click Do not send RPO alerts if you do not want to send RPO alerts.
5. Enter the value in the RPO alert interval box and select the appropriate time unit from the drop-down list.
The RPO alert preferences are now set for the new policy.

Managing replication to remote clusters

You can manually run, view, assess, pause, resume, cancel, resolve, and reset replication jobs that target other clusters.
After a policy job starts, you can pause the job to suspend replication activities. Afterwards, you can resume the job, continuing
replication from the point where the job was interrupted. You can also cancel a running or paused replication job if you want to
free the cluster resources allocated for the job. A paused job reserves cluster resources whether or not the resources are in use.
A cancelled job releases its cluster resources and allows another replication job to consume those resources. No more than five
running and paused replication jobs can exist on a cluster at a time. However, an unlimited number of canceled replication jobs
can exist on a cluster. If a replication job remains paused for more than a week, SyncIQ automatically cancels the job.

Start a replication job

You can manually start a replication job for a replication policy at any time.
If you want to replicate data according to an existing snapshot, at the OneFS command prompt, run the isi sync jobs
start command with the --source-snapshot option. You cannot replicate data according to snapshots generated by
SyncIQ.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, in the Actions column for a job, select Start Job.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Pause a replication job

You can pause a running replication job and then resume the job later. Pausing a replication job temporarily stops data from
being replicated, but does not free the cluster resources replicating the data.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, in the Actions column for a job, click Pause Running Job.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

258 Data replication with SyncIQ

Resume a replication job
You can resume a paused replication job.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Summary.
2. In the Currently Running table, in the Actions column for a job, click Resume Running Job.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Cancel a replication job

You can cancel a running or paused replication job. Cancelling a replication job stops data from being replicated and frees the
cluster resources that were replicating data. You cannot resume a cancelled replication job. To restart replication, you must start
the replication policy again.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, in the Actions column for a job, click Cancel Running Job.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

View active replication jobs

You can view information about replication jobs that are currently running or paused.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the Active Jobs table, review information about active replication jobs.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Related references
Replication job information

Replication job information

You can view information about replication jobs through the Active Jobs table.

Status The status of the job. The following job statuses are possible:

Running The job is currently running without error.

Paused The job has been temporarily paused.

Policy Name The name of the associated replication policy.

Started The time the job started.
Elapsed How much time has elapsed since the job started.
Transferred The number of files that have been transferred, and the total size of all transferred files.
Source Directory The path of the source directory on the source cluster.
Target Host The target directory on the target cluster.
Actions Displays any job-related actions that you can perform.

Data replication with SyncIQ 259

Initiating data failover and failback with SyncIQ
You can fail over from one PowerScale cluster to another if, for example, your primary cluster becomes unavailable. You can fail
back when the primary cluster becomes available again. You can revert failover if you decide that the failover was unnecessary
or if you failed over for testing purposes.
NOTE: Data failover and failback are supported for both compliance SmartLock directories and enterprise SmartLock
directories. Compliance SmartLock directories can be created only on clusters that have been set up as compliance mode
clusters during initial configuration. You cannot rename folders after creation in compliance mode.

Related concepts
Data failover and failback with SyncIQ

Fail over data to a secondary cluster

You can fail over to a secondary PowerScale cluster if your primary cluster becomes unavailable.
You must have created and successfully run a replication policy on the primary cluster. This action replicates data to the
secondary cluster.
NOTE: Data failover is supported both for SmartLock enterprise and compliance directories. A SmartLock compliance
directory requires its own separate replication policy.
Complete the following procedure for each replication policy that you want to fail over.
1. If your primary cluster is still online, complete the following steps:
a. Stop all writes to the replication policy's path, including both local and client activity.
This action ensures that new data is not written to the policy path as you prepare for failover to the secondary cluster.
b. Modify the replication policy so that it is set to run only manually.
This action prevents the policy on the primary cluster from automatically running a replication job. If the policy on the
primary cluster runs a replication job while writes are allowed to the target directory, the job fails and the replication
policy is deactivated. If this happens, modify the policy so that it is set to run only manually, resolve the policy, and
complete the failback process. After you complete the failback process, you can modify the policy to run according to a
schedule again.
2. On the secondary cluster, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
3. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, select More > Allow Writes for a replication policy.
4. Re-enable client access, and direct users to begin accessing their data from the secondary cluster.

Related concepts
Data failover

Revert a failover operation

Reverting a failover operation on a secondary cluster enables you to replicate data from the primary cluster to the secondary
cluster again. Failover reversion is useful if the primary cluster becomes available before data is modified on the secondary
cluster or if you failed over to a secondary cluster for testing purposes.
Fail over by executing a replication policy.
Reverting a failover operation does not migrate modified data back to the primary cluster. To migrate data that clients have
modified on the secondary cluster, you must fail back to the primary cluster.
Complete the following procedure for each replication policy that you want to fail over:
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
2. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, in the row for a replication policy, from the Actions column, select Disallow Writes.

260 Data replication with SyncIQ

Fail back data to a primary cluster
After you fail over to a secondary cluster, you can fail back to the primary cluster.
CAUTION: Before you begin, we recommend that you run SyncIQ's resync-prep job as soon as possible before
the fail back. The resync-prep job sets the dataset on the primary cluster to read-only, which will prevent any
possible writes from occurring. Only run the resync-prep job if the allow-writes are not going to be reverted.
Note that if writes have occurred on the primary cluster, then resync-prep will revert those changes. Creating
a temporary snapshot is a safeguard to reduce risk of data loss if a failover-failback is performed incorrectly.
You must take a snapshot on the SyncIQ source path prior to resync-prep if that data needs to be preserved.
This is to prevent situations in which both clusters are in a writable state during fail over, when clients could
potentially be writing to both clusters.
Before you can fail back to the primary cluster, you must already have failed over to the secondary cluster. Also, you must
ensure that your primary cluster is back online.
NOTE: Data failback is supported for SmartLock compliance and enterprise directories. If clients committed new SmartLock
files while the secondary cluster was in operation, these SmartLock files are replicated to the primary cluster during failback.
1. On the primary cluster, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the SyncIQ Policies list, for a replication policy, click More > Resync-prep.
This action causes SyncIQ to create a mirror policy for the replication policy on the primary cluster and secondary cluster.
The mirror policy is placed under Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets on the primary cluster. On the secondary
cluster, the mirror policy is placed under Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
SyncIQ names mirror policies according to the following pattern:

<replication-policy-name>_mirror

3. Before beginning the failback process, prevent clients from accessing the secondary cluster.
This action ensures that SyncIQ fails back the latest data set, including all changes that users made to data on the
secondary cluster while the primary cluster was out of service. We recommend that you wait until client activity is low before
preventing access to the secondary cluster.
4. On the secondary cluster, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
5. In the SyncIQ Policies list, for the mirror policy, click More > Start Job.
Alternatively, you can edit the mirror policy on the secondary cluster, and specify a schedule for the policy to run.
6. On the primary cluster, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
7. On the primary cluster, in the SyncIQ Local Targets list, for the mirror policy, select More > Allow Writes.
8. On the secondary cluster, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
9. On the secondary cluster, in the SyncIQ Policies list, click More > Resync-prep for the mirror policy.
This puts the secondary cluster back into read-only mode and ensures that the data sets are consistent on both the primary
and secondary clusters.
Redirect clients to begin accessing their data on the primary cluster. Although not required, it is safe to remove a mirror policy
after failback has completed successfully.

Related concepts
Data failback

Run the ComplianceStoreDelete job in a Smartlock compliance

mode domain
SyncIQ handles conflicts during failover/failback operations on a SmartLock compliance mode domain by unlinking committed
files from the user store and leaving a link of the file in the compliance store. The ComplianceStoreDelete job automatically
tracks and removes expired files from the compliance store if they were put there as a result of SyncIQ conflict resolution.
For example, you perform a SyncIQ failover or failback on a SmartLock compliance mode domain. The operation results in
a committed file being reverted to an uncommitted state. For conflict resolution, a copy of the committed file is stored in
the compliance store. The committed file in the compliance store eventually expires. The ComplianceStoreDelete job runs

Data replication with SyncIQ 261

automatically once a month and deletes the expired file. Expired files that are in use (referenced from outside of compliance
store) will not be deleted.
The ComplianceStoreDelete job runs automatically once per month or when started manually. You can run the job manually from
the Web UI on the Job Operations page.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types table, click Start Job in the ComplianceStoreDelete row.
The Start a Job dialog box appears.
3. Click Start Job.

Performing disaster recovery for older SmartLock

directories
If you replicated a SmartLock compliance directory to a secondary cluster running OneFS 7.2.1 or earlier, you cannot fail back
the SmartLock compliance directory to a primary cluster running OneFS 8.0.1 or later. However, you can recover the SmartLock
compliance directory stored on the secondary cluster, and migrate it back to the primary cluster.
NOTE: Data failover and failback with earlier versions of OneFS are supported for SmartLock enterprise directories.

Recover SmartLock compliance directories on a target cluster

You can recover compliance SmartLock directories that you have replicated to a secondary cluster running OneFS 7.2.1 or earlier
versions.
Complete the following procedure for each compliance SmartLock directory that you want to recover.
1. On the secondary cluster, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
2. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, for the replication policy, enable writes to the target directory of the policy.
● If the last replication job completed successfully and a replication job is not currently running, select Allow Writes.
● If a replication job is currently running, wait until the replication job completes, and then select Allow Writes.
● If the primary cluster became unavailable while a replication job was running, select Break Association. Note that you
should only break the association if the primary cluster has been taken offline permanently.
3. If you clicked Break Association, recover any files that are left in an inconsistent state.
a. Delete all files that are not committed to a WORM state from the target directory.
b. Copy all files from the failover snapshot to the target directory.
Failover snapshots are named according to the following naming pattern:

SIQ-Failover-<policy-name>-<year>-<month>-<day>_<hour>-<minute>-<second>

Snapshots are stored in the /ifs/.snapshot directory.

4. If any SmartLock directory configuration settings, such as an autocommit time period, were specified for the source
directory of the replication policy, apply those settings to the target directory.
Because autocommit information is not transferred to the target cluster, files that were scheduled to be committed to
a WORM state on the original source cluster would not be scheduled to be committed at the same time on the target
cluster. To make sure that all files are retained for the appropriate time period, you can commit all files in target SmartLock
directories to a WORM state.
For example, the following command automatically commits all files in /ifs/data/smartlock to a WORM state after one
minute:

isi worm domains modify /ifs/data/smartlock --autocommit-offset 1m

Redirect clients to begin accessing the target cluster.

262 Data replication with SyncIQ

Migrate SmartLock compliance directories
You can migrate SmartLock compliance directories from a recovery cluster, either by replicating the directories back to the
original source cluster or to a new cluster. These OneFS versions do not support failover and failback of SmartLock compliance
directories.
1. On the recovery cluster, create a replication policy for each SmartLock compliance directory that you want to migrate to
another cluster (the original primary cluster or a new cluster).
The policies must meet the following requirements:
● The source directory on the recovery cluster is the SmartLock compliance directory that you are migrating.
● The target directory is an empty SmartLock compliance directory on the cluster to which the data is to be migrated. The
source and target directories must both be SmartLock compliance directories.
2. Replicate recovery data to the target directory by running the policies that you created.
You can replicate data either by manually starting the policies or by specifying a schedule.

3. Optional: To ensure that SmartLock protection is enforced for all files, commit all migrated files in the SmartLock target
directory to a WORM state.
Because autocommit information is not transferred from the recovery cluster, commit all migrated files in target SmartLock
directories to a WORM state.
For example, the following command automatically commits all files in /ifs/data/smartlock to a WORM state after one
minute:

isi worm domains modify /ifs/data/smartlock --autocommit-offset 1m

This step is unnecessary if you have configured an autocommit time period for the SmartLock directories being migrated.
4. On the cluster with the migrated data, click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
5. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, for each replication policy, select More > Allow Writes.
6. Optional: If any SmartLock directory configuration settings, such as an autocommit time period, were specified for the
source directories of the replication policies, apply those settings to the target directories on the cluster now containing the
migrated data.
7. Optional: Delete the copy of the SmartLock data on the recovery cluster.
You cannot recover the space consumed by the source SmartLock directories until all files are released from a WORM state.
If you want to free the space before files are released from a WORM state, contact PowerScale Technical Support for
information about reformatting your recovery cluster.

Managing replication policies

You can modify, view, enable, and disable replication policies.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Modify a replication policy

You can modify the settings of a replication policy.
If you modify any of the following policy settings after a policy runs, OneFS performs either a full or differential replication the
next time the policy runs:
● Source directory
● Included or excluded directories
● File-criteria statement
● Target cluster
This applies only if you target a different cluster. If you modify the IP or domain name of a target cluster, and then modify
the replication policy on the source cluster to match the new IP or domain name, a full replication is not performed.

Data replication with SyncIQ 263

● Target directory
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, in the row for a policy, click View/Edit.
3. In the View SyncIQ Policy Details dialog box, click Edit Policy.
4. Modify the settings of the replication policy, and then click Save Changes. See the Configure basic policy settings section
for the editable fields.
The Sync existing snapshots before policy creation time check box is disabled while modifying the same policy.

Related references
Replication policy settings

Delete a replication policy

You can delete a replication policy. After a policy is deleted, SyncIQ no longer creates replication jobs for the policy. Deleting a
replication policy breaks the target association on the target cluster, and allows writes to the target directory.
If you want to temporarily suspend a replication policy from creating replication jobs, you can disable the policy, and then enable
the policy again later.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, in the row for a policy, select Delete Policy.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.
NOTE: The operation will not succeed until SyncIQ can communicate with the target cluster; until then, the policy will
not be removed from the SyncIQ Policies table. After the connection between the source cluster and target cluster
is reestablished, SyncIQ will delete the policy the next time that the job is scheduled to run; if the policy is configured
to run only manually, you must manually run the policy again. If SyncIQ is permanently unable to communicate with the
target cluster, run the isi sync policies delete command with the --local-only option. This will delete the
policy from the local cluster only and not break the target association on the target cluster. For more information, see
the OneFS CLI Administration Guide.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Enable or disable a replication policy

You can temporarily suspend a replication policy from creating replication jobs, and then enable it again later.
NOTE:

If you disable a replication policy while an associated replication job is running, the running job is not interrupted. However,
the policy will not create another job until the policy is enabled.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, in the row for a replication policy, select either Enable Policy or Disable Policy.
If neither Enable Policy nor Disable Policy appears, verify that a replication job is not running for the policy. If an
associated replication job is not running, ensure that the SyncIQ license is active on the cluster.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

View replication policies

You can view information about replication policies.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.

264 Data replication with SyncIQ

2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, review information about replication policies.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Related references
Replication policy settings

Replication policy information

You can view information about replication policies through the SyncIQ Policies table.

Policy Name The name of the policy.

State Whether the policy is enabled or disabled.
Last Known Good When the last successful job ran.
Schedule When the next job is scheduled to run. A value of Manual indicates that the job can be run only manually.
A value of When source is modified indicates that the job will be run whenever changes are made to
the source directory.
Source Directory The path of the source directory on the source cluster.
Target Host : The IP address or fully qualified domain name of the target cluster and the full path of the target
Directory directory.
Actions Any policy-related actions that you can perform.

Related tasks
View replication policies targeting the local cluster

Replication policy settings

You configure replication policies to run according to replication policy settings.

Policy name The name of the policy.

Description Describes the policy. For example, the description might explain the purpose or function of the policy.
Enabled Determines whether the policy is enabled.
Action Determines the how the policy replicates data. All policies copy files from the source directory to the
target directory and update files in the target directory to match files on the source directory. The action
determines how deleting a file on the source directory affects the target. The following values are valid:

Copy If a file is deleted in the source directory, the file is not deleted in the target
directory.
Synchronize Deletes files in the target directory if they are no longer present on the source. This
ensures that an exact replica of the source directory is maintained on the target
cluster.

Run job Determines whether jobs are run automatically according to a schedule or only when manually specified by
a user.
Last Successful Displays the last time that a replication job for the policy completed successfully.
Run
Last Started Displays the last time that the policy was run.
Source Root The full path of the source directory. Data is replicated from the source directory to the target directory.
Directory
Included Determines which directories are included in replication. If one or more directories are specified by this
Directories setting, any directories that are not specified are not replicated.

Data replication with SyncIQ 265

Excluded Determines which directories are excluded from replication. Any directories specified by this setting are
Directories not replicated.
File Matching Determines which files are excluded from replication. Any files that do not meet the specified criteria are
Criteria not replicated.
Restrict Source Determines whether the policy can run on all nodes on the source cluster or run only on specific nodes.
Nodes
Target Host The IP address or fully qualified domain name of the target cluster.
Target Directory The full path of the target directory. Data is replicated to the target directory from the source directory.
Restrict Target Determines whether the policy can connect to all nodes on the target cluster or can connect only to
Nodes specific nodes.
Capture Determines whether archival snapshots are generated on the target cluster.
Snapshots
Snapshot Alias Specifies a snapshot alias for the latest archival snapshot taken on the target cluster.
Name
Snapshot Naming Specifies how archival snapshots are named on the target cluster.
Pattern
Snapshot Specifies how long archival snapshots are retained on the target cluster before they are automatically
Expiration deleted by the system.
Workers Threads Specifies the number of workers per node that are generated by OneFS to perform each replication job
Per Node for the policy.
Log Level Specifies the amount of information that is recorded for replication jobs.
More verbose options include all information from less verbose options. The following list describes the
log levels from least to most verbose:
● Fatal
● Error
● Notice
● Info
● Copy
● Debug
● Trace
Replication logs are typically used for debugging purposes. If necessary, you can log in to a node through
the command-line interface and view the contents of the /var/log/isi_migrate.log file on the
node.

NOTE: Notice is the recommended log level.

Validate File Determines whether OneFS performs a checksum on each file data packet that is affected by a
Integrity replication job. If a checksum value does not match, OneFS retransmits the affected file data packet.
Keep Reports For Specifies how long replication reports are kept before they are automatically deleted by OneFS.
Log Deletions on Determines whether OneFS records when a synchronization job deletes files or directories on the target
Synchronization cluster.

The following replication policy fields are available only through the OneFS command-line interface.

Source Subnet Specifies whether replication jobs connect to any nodes in the cluster or if jobs can connect only to nodes
in a specified subnet.
Source Pool Specifies whether replication jobs connect to any nodes in the cluster or if jobs can connect only to nodes
in a specified pool.
Password Set Specifies a password to access the target cluster.
Report Max Specifies the maximum number of replication reports that are retained for this policy.
Count
Target Compare Determines whether full or differential replications are performed for this policy. Full or differential
Initial Sync replications are performed the first time a policy is run and after a policy is reset.

266 Data replication with SyncIQ

Source Snapshot Determines whether snapshots generated for the replication policy on the source cluster are deleted
Archive when the next replication policy is run. Enabling archival source snapshots does not require you to
activate the SnapshotIQ license on the cluster.
Source Snapshot If snapshots generated for the replication policy on the source cluster are retained, renames snapshots
Pattern according to the specified rename pattern.
Source Snapshot If snapshots generated for the replication policy on the source cluster are retained, specifies an expiration
Expiration period for the snapshots.
Restrict Target Determines whether replication jobs connect only to nodes in a given SmartConnect zone. This setting
Network applies only if the Target Host is specified as a SmartConnect zone.
Target Detect Determines whether SyncIQ checks the target directory for modifications before replicating files. By
Modifications default, SyncIQ always checks for modifications.
NOTE: Disabling this option could result in data loss. It is recommended that you consult PowerScale
Technical Support before disabling this option.

Resolve Determines whether you can manually resolve the policy if a replication job encounters an error.

Managing replication to the local cluster

You can interrupt replication jobs that target the local cluster.
You can cancel a currently running job that targets the local cluster, or you can break the association between a policy and its
specified target. Breaking a source and target cluster association causes SyncIQ to perform a full replication the next time the
policy is run.

Cancel replication to the local cluster

You can cancel a replication job that is targeting the local clusters.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
2. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, specify whether to cancel a specific replication job or all replication jobs targeting the
local cluster.
● To cancel a specific job, in the row for a replication job, select Cancel Running Job.
● To cancel all jobs targeting the local cluster, select the check box to the left of Policy Name and then select Cancel
Selection from the Select a bulk action list.

Break local target association

You can break the association between a replication policy and the local cluster. Breaking the target association allows writes to
the target directory but also requires you to reset the replication policy before you can run the policy again.
CAUTION:

After a replication policy is reset, SyncIQ performs a full or differential replication the next time the policy is
run. Depending on the amount of data being replicated, a full or differential replication can take a very long time
to complete.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
2. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, in the row for a replication policy, select Break Association.
3. In the Confirm dialog box, click Yes.

View replication policies targeting the local cluster

You can view information about replication policies that are currently replicating data to the local cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Local Targets.
2. In the SyncIQ Local Targets table, view information about replication policies.

Data replication with SyncIQ 267

Related references
Replication policy information

Remote replication policy information

You can view information about replication policies that are currently targeting the local cluster.
The following information is displayed in the SyncIQ Local Targets table:

ID The ID of the replication policy.

Policy Name The name of the replication policy.
Source Host The name of the source cluster.
Source Cluster The GUID of the source cluster.
GUID
Coordinator IP The IP address of the node on the source cluster that is acting as the job coordinator.
Updated The time when data about the policy or job was last collected from the source cluster.
Target Path The path of the target directory on the target cluster.
Status The current status of the replication job.
Actions Displays any job-related actions that you can perform.

Managing replication performance rules

You can manage the impact of replication on cluster performance by creating rules that limit the network traffic that is created
and the rate at which files replication jobs send files.
NOTE: The SyncIQ performance rules apply only to SyncIQ processes.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

Create a network traffic rule

You can create a network traffic rule that limits the amount of network traffic that replication policies are allowed to generate
during a specified time period.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Performance Rules.
2. Click Create a SyncIQ Performance Rule.
3. From the Rule Type list, select Bandwidth.
4. In the Limit field, specify the maximum number of kilobits per second that replication policies are allowed to send.
5. In the Schedule area, specify the time and days of the week that you want to apply the rule.
6. Click Create Performance Rule.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

Create a file operations rule

You can create a file-operations rule that limits the number of files that replication jobs can send per second.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Performance Rules.
2. Click Create a SyncIQ Performance Rule.
3. From the Rule Type list, select Bandwidth.

268 Data replication with SyncIQ

4. In the Limit field, specify the maximum number of files per second that replication policies are allowed to send.
5. In the Schedule area, specify the time and days of the week that you want to apply the rule.
6. Click Create Performance Rule.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

Modify a performance rule

You can modify a performance rule.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Performance Rules.
2. In the SyncIQ Performance Rules, in the row for the rule you want to modify, click View/Edit.
3. Click Edit Performance Rule.
4. Modify rule settings, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

Delete a performance rule

You can delete a performance rule.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Performance Rules.
2. In the SyncIQ Performance Rules table, in the row for the rule you want to delete, select Delete Rule.
3. In the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

Enable or disable a performance rule

You can disable a performance rule to temporarily prevent the rule from being enforced. You can also enable a performance rule
after it has been disabled.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Performance Rules.
2. In the SyncIQ Performance Rules table, in the row for a rule you want to enable or disable, select either Enable Rule or
Disable Rule.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

View performance rules

You can view information about replication performance rules.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Performance Rules.
2. In the SyncIQ Performance Rules table, view information about performance rules.

Related concepts
Controlling replication job resource consumption

Data replication with SyncIQ 269

Managing replication reports
In addition to viewing replication reports, you can configure how long reports are retained on the cluster. You can also delete any
reports that have passed their expiration period.

Related concepts
Replication reports

Configure default replication report settings

You can configure the default amount of time that SyncIQ retains replication reports for. You can also configure the maximum
number of reports that SyncIQ retains for each replication policy.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Settings.
2. In the Report Settings area, in the Keep Reports For area, specify how long you want to retain replication reports for.
After the specified expiration period has passed for a report, SyncIQ automatically deletes the report.
Some units of time are displayed differently when you view a report than how you originally enter them. Entering a number
of days that is equal to a corresponding value in weeks, months, or years results in the larger unit of time being displayed.
For example, if you enter a value of 7 days, 1 week appears for that report after it is created. This change occurs because
SyncIQ internally records report retention times in seconds and then converts them into days, weeks, months, or years for
display.

3. In the Number of Reports to Keep Per Policy field, type the maximum number of reports you want to retain at a time for
a replication policy.
4. Click Submit.

Related concepts
Replication reports

Delete replication reports

Replication reports are routinely deleted by SyncIQ after the expiration date for the reports has passed. SyncIQ also deletes
reports after the number of reports exceeds the specified limit. Excess reports are periodically deleted by SyncIQ; however,
you can manually delete all excess replication reports at any time. This procedure is available only through the command-line
interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster, and log in.
2. Delete excess replication reports by running the following command:

isi sync reports rotate

Related concepts
Replication reports

View replication reports

You can view replication reports and subreports.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Reports.
2. In the SyncIQ Reports table, in the row for a report, click View Details.
If a report is composed of subreports, the report is displayed as a folder. Subreports are displayed as files within report
folders.

Related concepts
Replication reports

270 Data replication with SyncIQ

Related references
Replication report information

Replication report information

You can view information about replication jobs through the Reports table.

Policy Name The name of the associated policy for the job. You can view or edit settings for the policy by clicking the
policy name.

Status Displays the status of the job. The following job statuses are possible:
Running
The job is currently running without error.
Paused
The job has been temporarily paused.
Finished
The job completed successfully.
Failed
The job failed to complete.

Started Indicates when the job started.

Ended Indicates when the job ended.

Duration Indicates how long the job took to complete.
Transferred The total number of files that were transferred during the job run, and the total size of all transferred
files. For assessed policies, Assessment appears.

Source Directory The path of the source directory on the source cluster.

Target Host The IP address or fully qualified domain name of the target cluster.

Action Displays any report-related actions that you can perform.

Related tasks
View replication reports

Managing failed replication jobs

If a replication job fails due to an error, SyncIQ might disable the corresponding replication policy. For example SyncIQ might
disable a replication policy if the IP or hostname of the target cluster is modified. If a replication policy is disabled, the policy
cannot be run.
To resume replication for a disabled policy, you must either fix the error that caused the policy to be disabled, or reset the
replication policy. It is recommended that you attempt to fix the issue rather than reset the policy. If you believe you have fixed
the error, you can return the replication policy to an enabled state by resolving the policy. You can then run the policy again to
test whether the issue was fixed. If you are unable to fix the issue, you can reset the replication policy. However, resetting the
policy causes a full or differential replication to be performed the next time the policy is run.
NOTE: Depending on the amount of data being synchronized or copied, full and differential replications can take a very long
time to complete.

Data replication with SyncIQ 271

Resolve a replication policy
If SyncIQ disables a replication policy due to a replication error, and you fix the issue that caused the error, you can resolve the
replication policy. Resolving a replication policy enables you to run the policy again. If you cannot resolve the issue that caused
the error, you can reset the replication policy.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the Policies table, in the row for a policy, select Resolve.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Reset a replication policy

If a replication job encounters an error that you cannot resolve, you can reset the corresponding replication policy. Resetting
a policy causes OneFS to perform a full or differential replication the next time the policy is run. Resetting a replication policy
deletes the latest snapshot generated for the policy on the source cluster.
CAUTION: Depending on the amount of data being replicated, a full or differential replication can take a very
long time to complete. Reset a replication policy only if you cannot fix the issue that caused the replication
error. If you fix the issue that caused the error, resolve the policy instead of resetting the policy.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ > Policies.
2. In the SyncIQ Policies table, in the row for a policy, select Reset Sync State.

Related concepts
Replication policies and jobs

Perform a full or differential replication

After you reset a replication policy, you must perform either a full or differential replication. You can do this replication only from
the CLI.
Reset a replication policy.
NOTE: Files smaller than 32 KB are sent directly to the target cluster even if they are the same. Only files 32 KB and larger
are compared to the target to determine if they should be sent.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in through the root or compliance administrator
account.
2. Specify the type of replication you want to perform by running the isi sync policies modify command.
● To perform a full replication, disable the --target-compare-initial-sync option.
For example, the following command disables differential synchronization for newPolicy:

isi sync policies modify newPolicy \

--target-compare-initial-sync false

● To perform a differential replication, enable the --target-compare-initial-sync option.

For example, the following command enables differential synchronization for newPolicy:

isi sync policies modify newPolicy \

--target-compare-initial-sync true

3. Run the policy by running the isi sync jobs start command.
For example, the following command runs newPolicy:

isi sync jobs start newPolicy

272 Data replication with SyncIQ

Related concepts
Full and differential replication

Data replication with SyncIQ 273

 16
Data Encryption with SyncIQ
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• SyncIQ data encryption overview
• SyncIQ traffic encryption
• Per-policy throttling overview
• SyncIQ encrypted connection
• Manage certificates for target clusters
• Manage certificates for source clusters
• Manage SyncIQ policies with encryption enabled

SyncIQ data encryption overview

OneFS now enables you to encrypt SyncIQ data from one PowerScale cluster to another.
You can use the integrated capabilities of SyncIQ to encrypt the data during transfer between PowerScale clusters and protect
the data in flight during intercluster replications.
SyncIQ policies now support end-to-end encryption for cross-cluster communications.
You can manage certificates with the help of the new SyncIQ store. SyncIQ provides encryption by using X.509 certificates that
are paired with TLS version 1.2 and OpenSSL version 1.0.2o. The certificates are stored and managed in the certificate stores
of the source and target clusters . Encryption between clusters takes place with each cluster storing its own certificate and
the certificate of its peer. The source cluster is required to store the certificate of the target cluster, and conversely. Storing
the certificate of the peer essentially creates an allowed list of approved clusters for data replication. Certification revocation is
supported through an external Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responder.
NOTE: Both the source and target cluster must be upgraded and committed to OneFS 8.2.x, before enabling SyncIQ
encryption.
PowerScale clusters may now require that all incoming and outgoing SyncIQ policies be encrypted through a simple change in
the SyncIQ Global Settings.

SyncIQ traffic encryption

SyncIQ data that is transmitted between the source and target clusters is encrypted.
SyncIQ provides additional protection from man-in-the-middle attacks and prevents unauthorized source or target relationships.
The standard certificate configuration for SyncIQ policy encryption requires six files:
● SourceClusterCert.pem - A single end-entity certificate that identifies the Source cluster
● SourceClusterKey.pem - The associated private key file that goes with the Source cluster identity cert
● SourceClusterCA.pem - A self-signed root CA file that issued the Source cluster identity cert
● TargetClusterCert.pem - A single end-entity certificate that identifies the Target cluster
● TargetClusterKey.pem - The associated private key file that goes with the Target cluster identity cert
● TargetClusterCA.pem - A self-signed root CA file that issued the Target cluster identity cert (may be the same as 3)
Because SyncIQ encryption requires mutual authentication SSL handshakes, each cluster must specify its own identity
certificate and the CA certificate of the peer.

274 Data Encryption with SyncIQ

Per-policy throttling overview
OneFS now enables you to set per-policy throttling rules.
Existing versions of OneFS enables you to configure global bandwidth throttling rules that are applied evenly across running
policies. Now, you can set bandwidth reservations per policy, instead of the global level.

SyncIQ encrypted connection

SyncIQ encryption is enabled by default to protect the OneFS cluster's data.
Previously, SyncIQ did not enforce encryption over the wire for inter-cluster communication by default. This situation might
have left clusters at risk by exposing themselves to security vulnerabilities. In addition, without using encrypted connections
SyncIQ allowed incoming SyncIQ connections to overwrite any existing data on the target cluster.
Now, SyncIQ encryption is enabled by default for new clusters that do not have any SyncIQ policies. If one or more policies
do exist on the cluster, encryption is disabled by default. The user must enable it manually from the OneFS web administration
interface.

Activate SyncIQ license

You can activate a SyncIQ license on your cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click Activate SyncIQ if SyncIQ is not activated for the cluster.
The Licensing page appears. For more details, see the Licensing section of the OneFS Web Administration Guide.

Enable SyncIQ encryption

You can enable SyncIQ encryption by updating all the existing policies. If encryption is enabled without setting certificates or
updating all the existing policies correctly, the SyncIQ policy fails.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Settings tab.
The Edit SyncIQ settings area appears.
3. Under the Global settings area, select Encrypt SyncIQ connection.
The Please note dialog box appears with the following message:

There are one or more non-encrypted SyncIQ policies on this cluster. After enabling
encryption, each of these policies will need to be manually updated to select a
target cluster certificate.

4. Click Enable.
The encryption is set as true. The existing policies will need to be manually updated to select a target cluster certificate.
After the encryption is enabled, it cannot be disabled.
NOTE: Click Cancel to close the dialog box.

Manage certificates for target clusters

You can add, view, modify, and delete a certificate that is associated with the target cluster.

Add target cluster certificate

You can add a certificate to your target cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.

Data Encryption with SyncIQ 275

 The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Certificates tab and then click Add certificate.
The Add certificate dialog box appears.
3. Enter the details:
● Certificate file: Click Browse to choose the certificate path. This field is mandatory.
● Alias name: Enter the name of the target cluster certificate.
● Description: Enter any description that is related to the target cluster certificate.
4. Click Save Changes.
The certificate is listed in the Target certificate list and appears when you try to add or modify a SyncIQ policy. Also, all
added certificates appear in the Certificates tab.
NOTE: Click Cancel to close the Add certificate dialog box.

View target cluster certificate

You can view the details of a certificate that is associated with your target cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Certificates tab.
You can view all the certificates that are associated with your target cluster.
From the Filter by status list, select any of the options (All, Valid, Invalid, Expired, Expiring) to filter the list of certificates.
3. Under the Actions area, click View/Edit next to the certificate you want to view.
The View/Edit certificate details dialog box appears.
4. View the details:
● Id: View the identification detail that is generated automatically.
● Alias name: View the name of the target cluster certificate.
● Description: View any description that is related to the target cluster certificate.
● Status: View status of the target cluster certificate.
● Expires: View the expiry date for the target cluster certificate.
Click Cancel to close the View/Edit certificate details dialog box.

Modify target cluster certificate

You can modify the details of a certificate that is associated with your target cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Certificates tab.
You can view all the certificates that are associated with your target cluster.
From the Filter by status list, select any of the options (All, Valid, Invalid, Expired, Expiring) to filter the list of certificates.
3. Under the Actions area, click View/Edit next to the certificate you want to modify.
The View/Edit certificate details dialog box appears.
4. Modify the details:
● Id: You cannot modify the identification detail that is generated automatically.
● Alias name: Modify the name of the target cluster certificate.
● Description: Modify any description that is related to the target cluster certificate.
● Status: You cannot modify the status of the target cluster certificate.
● Expires: You cannot modify the expiry date for the target cluster certificate.
5. Click Save Changes.
The changes are saved.
Click Cancel to close the View/Edit certificate details dialog box without saving the changes.

276 Data Encryption with SyncIQ

Delete target cluster certificate
You can delete a certificate that is associated with your target cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Certificates tab.
You can view all the certificates that are associated with your target cluster.
From the Filter by status list, select any of the options (All, Valid, Invalid, Expired, Expiring) to filter the list of certificates.
3. Under the Actions column, click More next to the certificate you want to delete.
The Confirm delete dialog box appears.
4. Click Delete.
The certificate is deleted.
Click Cancel to close the Confirm delete dialog box.

Manage certificates for source clusters

You can add, view, modify, and delete a certificate that is associated with the source cluster.

Add source cluster certificate

You can add a certificate to your source cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Settings tab.
The Edit SyncIQ settings area appears.
A warning message similar to the following appears when no source cluster is configured.

OneFS is unable to detect any source cluster certificates. A source cluster

certificate is required to enable encryption. Please add at least one source cluster
certificate using Server certificates section below.

3. In the Server certificates section, click Add Certificate.

The Add certificate dialog box appears.
4. Enter the details:
● Certificate file: Click Browse to select the certificate path. This field is mandatory.
● Key path: Click Browse to select the key path. This field is mandatory.
● Key password: Enter a password for the key.
● Alias name: Enter the name of the source cluster certificate.
● Description: Enter any description that is related to the target source cluster certificate.
5. Click Save Changes.
The certificate is added in the Server certificates section.
NOTE: Click Cancel to close the Add certificate dialog box.

View source cluster certificate

You can view the details of a certificate that is associated with your source cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Settings tab.
The Edit SyncIQ settings area appears.
From the Filter by status list, select any of the options (All, Valid, Invalid, Expired, Expiring) to filter the list of certificates.
3. In the Server certificates section, click View/Edit next to the certificate you want to view.
The View certificate details dialog box appears.

Data Encryption with SyncIQ 277

4. View the details:
● Id: View the identification detail that is generated automatically.
● Alias name: View the name of the source cluster certificate.
● Description: View any description that is related to the source cluster certificate.
● Status: View the status of the source cluster certificate.
● Expires: View the expiry date for the source cluster certificate.
Click Cancel to close the View certificate details dialog box.

Modify source cluster certificate

You can modify the details of a certificate that is associated with your source cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Settings tab.
The Edit SyncIQ settings area appears.
From the Filter by status list, select any of the options (All, Valid, Invalid, Expired, Expiring) to filter the list of certificates.
3. In the Server certificates section, click View/Edit next to the certificate you want to modify.
The View certificate details dialog box appears.
4. Click Edit.
The Edit certificate details dialog box appears.
5. Modify the details:
● Id: You cannot modify the identification detail that is generated automatically.
● Alias name: Modify the name of the source cluster certificate.
● Description: Modify any description that is related to the source cluster certificate.
● Status: You cannot modify the status of the source cluster certificate.
● Expires: You cannot modify the expiry date for the source cluster certificate.
6. Click Save Changes.
The changes are saved.
Click Cancel to close the Edit certificate details dialog box without saving the changes.

Delete source cluster certificate

You can delete a certificate that is associated with your source cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Settings tab.
The Edit SyncIQ settings area appears
From the Filter by status list, select any of the options (All, Valid, Invalid, Expired, Expiring) to filter the list of certificates.
3. Under the Actions column, click More next to the certificate you want to delete.
The Confirm delete dialog box appears.
4. Click Delete.
The certificate is deleted.
Click Cancel to close the Confirm delete dialog box.

278 Data Encryption with SyncIQ

Manage SyncIQ policies with encryption enabled
You can create, view, and modify a SyncIQ policy when encryption is enabled.

Create SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled

You can create a SyncIQ policy when encryption is enabled.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Policies tab.
The SyncIQ policies area appears.
3. Click Create a SyncIQ policy.
The Configure target certificate dialog box appears with a message similar to the following when no target cluster
certificate is configured .

OneFS is unable to detect any target cluster certificates. A

target cluster certificate is required to enable policy with encryption
enabled. Please add at least one target cluster certificate.

4. Click Configure certificate.

The Certificates area appears. You can add target certificates.
NOTE: Click Cancel to close the Configure target certificate dialog box.

View SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled

You can view a SyncIQ policy when encryption is enabled.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Policies tab.
The SyncIQ policies area appears.
3. In the SyncIQ policies section, click View/Edit next to the policy you want to view.
The View SyncIQ policy details dialog box appears.
4. View the details of the policy.
NOTE: Click Close to exit the View SyncIQ policy details dialog box.

Modify SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled

You can modify a SyncIQ policy when encryption is enabled.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Policies tab.
The SyncIQ policies area appears.
3. In the SyncIQ policies section, click View/Edit next to the policy you want to modify.
The View SyncIQ policy details dialog box appears.
4. Click Edit policy.
The Edit SyncIQ policy details dialog box appears.
5. You can modify the details of the policy. You can select the appropriate certificate from the Target certificate list in the
Target cluster section.

Data Encryption with SyncIQ 279

 If there is no target cluster certificate added, the Configure target certificate dialog box appears with a message similar
to the following:

OneFS is unable to detect any target cluster certificates. A target cluster

certificate is required to edit policy with encryption enabled. Please add at least
one target cluster certificate.

Click Configure certificate and you will be redirected to the Certificates tab to create a target cluster certificate.

Delete SyncIQ policy with encryption enabled

You can delete a SyncIQ policy when encryption is enabled.
1. Click Data Protection > SyncIQ.
The SyncIQ page appears.
2. Click the Policies tab.
The SyncIQ policies area appears.
3. Under the Actions column, click More next to the policy you want to delete.
The Confirm delete dialog box appears.
4. Click Delete. The SyncIQ policy is deleted.
Click Cancel to close the Confirm delete dialog box .

280 Data Encryption with SyncIQ

 17
Data Transfer with Datamover (SmartSync)
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Dell PowerScale Datamover (SmartSync) overview

Dell PowerScale Datamover (SmartSync) overview

Dell PowerScale OneFS Datamover (also called SmartSync) enables you to transfer data between PowerScale clusters and
S3 object stores (ECS, AWS) using the Datamover transfer engine that is embedded in OneFS. Datamover ensures that you
have a consistent copy of your data on another PowerScale cluster and/or cloud platform. Datamover allows you to control
the frequency of data transfers at scheduled times using policies. Similar to the SyncIQ module, you can transfer data at the
directory level, while optionally excluding specific files and subdirectories from being transferred.
The embedded Datamover feature provides data replication for file and object deployments on-premises or in the cloud.
Datamover enables file-to-file transfers between PowerScale clusters using RPC and file-to-object copy transfers to S3 (ECS,
AWS) and Azure cloud systems.
This section provides an overview of the Datamover transfer engine. You configure and administer Datamover using OneFS CLI
commands. See the PowerScale OneFS CLI Administration Guide for details.
Datamover provides the following primary functions:
● Data protection
● Data repurposing (copy)
● Data archive
Datamover provides a flexible execution model of push/pull data transfers between systems. While SyncIQ allows administrators
to push data from a source to a target cluster, Datamover also allows for a target cluster to pull data from a source cluster,
resulting in reduced throughput and CPU impacts on the source cluster.
● Faster data transfers than SyncIQ
● Snapshot locking
● Separation between Datamover datasets and user snapshots prevents accidental deletion of snapshots during transfers
● Scalable run-time engine
● Dataset "reconnect" allows systems with identical datasets to reconnect for instant incremental backups during failover
scenarios
● Namespace contention avoidance
● Batch operations for efficient small file transfers
● Bulk operations to address file ID-mapping contention
● Improved bench marking
● Smart scheduling
● CPU and bandwidth throttling
● Centralized management of policies and jobs
● Replication between multiple sets of clusters
● NANO(A)N: Not-All-Nodes-On-(All)-Networks detection. Active accounts are monitored on-the-fly by each node.
○ Nodes with no accessibility to an account do not participate in a transfer
● Improved error handling and graceful crash recovery to ensure checkpointing stability
● Data recovery
○ You can restore from a dataset that you replicated to another cluster. For example, you can copy a dataset from an
archive tier to a production tier as a one-time copy. That copy will be read/write on arrival.
○ You can perform a one-time copy at any time to your archive tier or between any two clusters. A one-time copy provides
the option to not make Datamover datasets, which means you can start using them read/write immediately.
File-to-file high-performance data transfers

Data Transfer with Datamover (SmartSync) 281

● Streamlined baseline and incremental file transfers
● Namespace contention avoidance. Namespace creation is separated from data transfers
● Batch transfers of small files, attributes, and data blocks
● Asynchronous I/O backed by lightweight threads (fibers) allows for maximized parallel transfers
File-to-object content distribution "copy" format limitations
The following table lists current limitations in file-to-object transfers.

Limitation Description
ADS files Skipped when encountered
Hardlinks Not supported. An object is created for each link (hard links are not preserved)
Symlinks Skipped when encountered
Special files Skipped when encountered
Metadata Only the following POSIX attributes are copied: mode, UID, GID, atime, mtime, ctime
File name encoding Encodings are converted to UTF-8
Large files Errors are returned for files greater than the cloud provider's maximum object size
Sparse files Sparse sections are not preserved; they are written out fully as zeros
CloudPools Not supported
Compression in transit Not supported
Copy back from the cloud Not supported if the data was not created by Data Mover
Incremental transfers Not supported for file-to-object transfers. Only one-time copy to cloud/copy back from cloud
is supported

Licensing and credential requirements

● Datamover must be hosted on all PowerScale clusters where transfers are planned.
● For OneFS copy to cloud and copy back from cloud transfers, Datamover is installed on OneFS but not on the cloud systems.
● Datamover waits for the administrator to commit the OneFS upgrade to OneFS 9.4.0.0.
● You must have a current SyncIQ (ISI_LICENSING_SYNCIQ_v_2_0) license activated on PowerScale clusters before you can
run Datamover between them.
● ○ Datamover is enabled when a SyncIQ license is activated and the certificates in the following table are configured.
○ If a SyncIQ license expires after configuring policies, the jobs will continue to run. Datamover Rest APIs will serve the
GET and DELETE calls; PUT and POST calls will not be allowed.
● A shared CA is the simplest configuration, however it is not a requirement to communicate with peer Datamover engines.
Two systems trust each other if they have the CAs that signed each other's identity certificates.
● Users must have the ISI_PRIV_DATAMOVER administrative (AIMA) privilege to configure the Datamover using the Rest
APIs.
● Inbound TCP port 7722 must be opened in firewalls.

Certificate requirements
The following Certificate Authorities (CA) and trust hierarchies are required.

Requirement Description
TLS certificates ● A mutually authenticated TLS handshake is required.
Authorization, authentication, and encryption are provided
by TLS certificates.
● TLS certificates are always required for daemon startup
and all communication between Datamover engines.
● Encryption can be disabled, but authorization and
authentication cannot be disabled.

282 Data Transfer with Datamover (SmartSync)

Requirement Description
Certificate Authorities (CA) ● One or more Certificate Authorities (CA) are required on
each Datamover system.
● Dell recommends that customers use a new, Datamover-
specific CA for signing Datamover identity certificates.
● The CA that signs an identity certificate does not need to
be installed on the system that the identity certificate is
installed on. Two systems trust each other if they have the
CAs that signed each other's identity certificates.
Identity certificates ● The certificate that provides authentication of the identity
claimed.
● Exactly one identity certificate must exist on each
Datamover system.
● Identity certificates are signed by one of the CAs deployed
on the systems that the system is going to communicate
with.
Trust hierarchies ● Two systems trust each other if they have the CAs that
signed each other's identity certificates.
● There is no concept of unidirectional trust—trust is
entirely mutual.

Reference documentation
The OneFS CLI Administration Guide provides details for configuring and administering Datamover. The Datamover feature
includes a full set of isi dm command line interface (CLI) commands and APIs in the PowerScale OneFS 9.4.0.0 CLI Command
Reference and PowerScale OneFS 9.4.0.0 API Reference Guides.
You can find these guides under the Documentation tab on the PowerScale OneFS support site: https://www.dell.com/
support/home/en-us/product-support/product/isilon-onefs/docs.

Data Transfer with Datamover (SmartSync) 283

 18
Data layout with FlexProtect
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• FlexProtect overview
• File striping
• Requested data protection
• FlexProtect data recovery
• Requesting data protection
• Requested protection settings
• Requested protection disk space usage

FlexProtect overview
A PowerScale cluster is designed to continuously serve data, even when one or more components simultaneously fail. OneFS
ensures data availability by striping or mirroring data across the cluster. If a cluster component fails, data that is stored on the
failed component is available on another component. After a component failure, lost data is restored on healthy components by
the FlexProtect proprietary system.
Data protection is specified at the file level, not the block level, enabling the system to recover data quickly. All data, metadata,
and parity information is distributed across all nodes: the cluster does not require a dedicated parity node or drive. No single
node limits the speed of the rebuild process.

File striping
OneFS uses a PowerScale cluster's internal network to distribute data automatically across individual nodes and disks in the
cluster. OneFS protects files as the data is being written. No separate action is necessary to protect data.
Before writing files to storage, OneFS breaks files into smaller logical chunks called stripes. The size of each file chunk is
referred to as the stripe unit size. Each OneFS block is 8 KB, and a stripe unit consists of 16 blocks, for a total of 128 KB per
stripe unit. During a write, OneFS breaks data into stripes and then logically places the data into a stripe unit. As OneFS writes
data across the cluster, OneFS fills the stripe unit and protects the data according to the number of writable nodes and the
specified protection policy.
OneFS can continuously reallocate data and make storage space more usable and efficient. As the cluster size increases, OneFS
stores large files more efficiently.
To protect files that are 128KB or smaller, OneFS does not break these files into smaller logical chunks. Instead, OneFS uses
mirroring with forward error correction (FEC). With mirroring, OneFS makes copies of each small file's data (N), adds an FEC
parity chunk (M), and distributes multiple instances of the entire protection unit (N+M) across the cluster.

Requested data protection

The requested protection of data determines the amount of redundant data created on the cluster to ensure that data is
protected against component failures. OneFS enables you to modify the requested protection in real time while clients are
reading and writing data on the cluster.
OneFS provides several data protection settings. You can modify these protection settings at any time without rebooting
or taking the cluster or file system offline. When planning your storage solution, keep in mind that increasing the requested
protection reduces write performance and requires additional storage space for the increased number of nodes.

284 Data layout with FlexProtect

OneFS uses the Reed Solomon algorithm for N+M protection. In the N+M data protection model, N represents the number
of data-stripe units, and M represents the number of simultaneous node or drive failures—or a combination of node and drive
failures—that the cluster can withstand without incurring data loss. N must be larger than M.
In addition to N+M data protection, OneFS also supports data mirroring from 2x to 8x, allowing from two to eight mirrors of
data. In terms of overall cluster performance and resource consumption, N+M protection is often more efficient than mirrored
protection. However, because read and write performance is reduced for N+M protection, data mirroring might be faster for
data that is updated often and is small in size. Data mirroring requires significant overhead and might not always be the best
data-protection method. For example, if you enable 3x mirroring, the specified content is duplicated three times on the cluster;
depending on the amount of content mirrored, this can consume a significant amount of storage space.

Related concepts
Requesting data protection

Related references
Requested protection settings
Requested protection disk space usage

FlexProtect data recovery

OneFS uses the FlexProtect proprietary system to detect and repair files and directories that are in a degraded state due to
node or drive failures.
OneFS protects data in the cluster based on the configured protection policy. OneFS rebuilds failed disks, uses free storage
space across the entire cluster to further prevent data loss, monitors data, and migrates data off of at-risk components.
OneFS distributes all data and error-correction information across the cluster and ensures that all data remains intact and
accessible even in the event of simultaneous component failures. Under normal operating conditions, all data on the cluster is
protected against one or more failures of a node or drive. However, if a node or drive fails, the cluster protection status is
considered to be in a degraded state until the data is protected by OneFS again. OneFS reprotects data by rebuilding data in the
free space of the cluster. While the protection status is in a degraded state, data is more vulnerable to data loss.
Because data is rebuilt in the free space of the cluster, the cluster does not require a dedicated hot-spare node or drive in order
to recover from a component failure. Because a certain amount of free space is required to rebuild data, it is recommended that
you reserve adequate free space through the virtual hot spare feature.
As you add more nodes, the cluster gains more CPU, memory, and disks to use during recovery operations. As a cluster grows
larger, data restriping operations become faster.

Smartfail
OneFS protects data stored on failing nodes or drives through a process called smartfailing.
During the smartfail process, OneFS places a device into quarantine. Data stored on quarantined devices is read only. While
a device is quarantined, OneFS reprotects the data on the device by distributing the data to other devices. After all data
migration is complete, OneFS logically removes the device from the cluster, the cluster logically changes its width to the new
configuration, and the node or drive can be physically replaced.
OneFS smartfails devices only as a last resort. Although you can manually smartfail nodes or drives, it is recommended that you
first consult Dell Technologies Support.
Occasionally a device might fail before OneFS detects a problem. If a drive fails without being smartfailed, OneFS automatically
starts rebuilding the data to available free space on the cluster. However, because a node might recover from a failure, if a node
fails, OneFS does not start rebuilding data unless the node is logically removed from the cluster.

Node failures
Because node loss is often a temporary issue, OneFS does not automatically start reprotecting data when a node fails or goes
offline. If a node reboots, the file system does not need to be rebuilt because it remains intact during the temporary failure.
If you configure N+1 data protection on a cluster, and one node fails, all of the data is still accessible from every other node in
the cluster. If the node comes back online, the node rejoins the cluster automatically without requiring a full rebuild.

Data layout with FlexProtect 285

To ensure that data remains protected, if you physically remove a node from the cluster, you must also logically remove the
node from the cluster. After you logically remove a node, the node automatically reformats its own drives, and resets itself
to the factory default settings. The reset occurs only after OneFS has confirmed that all data has been reprotected. You can
logically remove a node using the smartfail process. It is important that you smartfail nodes only when you want to permanently
remove a node from the cluster.
If you remove a failed node before adding a new node, data stored on the failed node must be rebuilt in the free space in the
cluster. After the new node is added, OneFS distributes the data to the new node. It is more efficient to add a replacement node
to the cluster before failing the old node because OneFS can immediately use the replacement node to rebuild the data stored
on the failed node.

Requesting data protection

You can specify the protection of a file or directory by setting its requested protection. This flexibility enables you to protect
distinct sets of data at higher than default levels.
Requested protection of data is calculated by OneFS and set automatically on storage pools within your cluster. The default
setting is referred to as suggested protection, and provides the optimal balance between data protection and storage efficiency.
For example, a suggested protection of N+2:1 means that two drives or one node can fail without causing any data loss.
For best results, we recommend that you accept at least the suggested protection for data on your cluster. You can always
specify a higher protection level than suggested protection on critical files, directories, or node pools.
OneFS allows you to request protection that the cluster is currently incapable of matching. If you request an unmatchable
protection, the cluster will continue trying to match the requested protection until a match is possible. For example, in a
four-node cluster, you might request a mirror protection of 5x. In this example, OneFS would mirror the data at 4x until you
added a fifth node to the cluster, at which point OneFS would reprotect the data at 5x.
If you set requested protection to a level below suggested protection, OneFS warns you of this condition.
NOTE:

For 4U Isilon IQ X-Series and NL-Series nodes, and IQ 12000X/EX 12000 combination platforms, the minimum cluster size
of three nodes requires a minimum protection of N+2:1.

Related concepts
Requested data protection

Requested protection settings

Requested protection settings determine the level of hardware failure that a cluster can recover from without suffering data
loss.

Requested protection setting Minimum number of nodes Definition

required
[+1n] 3 The cluster can recover from one drive or node
failure without sustaining any data loss.
[+2d:1n] 3 The cluster can recover from two simultaneous
drive failures or one node failure without
sustaining any data loss.
[+2n] 4 The cluster can recover from two simultaneous
drive or node failures without sustaining any
data loss.
[+3d:1n] 3 The cluster can recover from three simultaneous
drive failures or one node failure without
sustaining any data loss.
[+3d:1n1d] 3 The cluster can recover from three simultaneous
drive failures or simultaneous failures of one
node and one drive without sustaining any data
loss.

286 Data layout with FlexProtect

Requested protection setting Minimum number of nodes Definition
required
[+3n] 6 The cluster can recover from three simultaneous
drive or node failures without sustaining any
data loss.
[+4d:1n] 3 The cluster can recover from four simultaneous
drive failures or one node failure without
sustaining any data loss.
[+4d:2n] 4 The cluster can recover from four simultaneous
drive failures or two node failures without
sustaining any data loss.
[+4n] 8 The cluster can recover from four simultaneous
drive or node failures without sustaining any
data loss.
Nx (Data mirroring) N The cluster can recover from N - 1 drive or
node failures without sustaining data loss. For
For example, 5x requires a
example, 5x protection means that the cluster
minimum of five nodes.
can recover from four drive or node failures.

Related concepts
Requested data protection

Requested protection disk space usage

Increasing the requested protection of data also increases the amount of space consumed by the data on the cluster.
The parity overhead for N + M protection depends on the file size and the number of nodes in the cluster. The percentage of
parity overhead declines as the cluster gets larger.
The following table describes the estimated percentage of overhead depending on the requested protection and the size of the
cluster or node pool. The table does not show recommended protection levels based on cluster size.

Number [+1n] [+2d:1n] [+2n] [+3d:1n] [+3d:1n1d] [+3n] [+4d:1n] [+4d:2n] [+4n]
of nodes
3 2 +1 (33%) 4 + 2 — 6+3 3 + 3 (50%) — 8+4 — —
(33%) (33%) (33%)
4 3 +1 6+2 2+2 9+3 5 + 3 (38%) — 12 + 4 4+4 —
(25%) (25%) (50%) (25%) (25%) (50%)
5 4 +1 8+2 3+2 12 + 3 7 + 3 (30%) — 16 + 4 6+4 —
(20%) (20%) (40%) (20%) (20%) (40%)
6 5 +1 (17%) 10 + 2 4+2 15 + 3 9 + 3 (25%) 3+3 16 + 4 8+4 —
(17%) (33%) (17%) (50%) (20%) (33%)
7 6 +1 (14%) 12 + 2 5+2 15 + 3 11 + 3 (21%) 4+3 16 + 4 10 + 4 —
(14%) (29%) (17%) (43%) (20%) (29%)
8 7 +1 (13%) 14 + 2 6+2 15 + 3 13 + 3 (19%) 5+3 16 + 4 12 + 4 4+4
(12.5%) (25%) (17%) (38%) (20%) (25% ) (50%)
9 8 +1 (11%) 16 + 2 7+2 15 + 3 15+3 (17%) 6+3 16 + 4 14 + 4 5+4
(11%) (22%) (17%) (33%) (20%) (22%) (44%)
10 9 +1 (10%) 16 + 2 8+2 15 + 3 15+3 (17%) 7+3 16 + 4 16 + 4 6+4
(11%) (20%) (17%) (30%) (20%) (20%) (40%)
12 11 +1 (8%) 16 + 2 10 + 2 15 + 3 15+3 (17%) 9+3 16 + 4 16 + 4 8+4
(11%) (17%) (17%) (25%) (20%) (20%) (33%)

Data layout with FlexProtect 287

Number [+1n] [+2d:1n] [+2n] [+3d:1n] [+3d:1n1d] [+3n] [+4d:1n] [+4d:2n] [+4n]
of nodes
14 13 + 1 16 + 2 12 + 2 15 + 3 15+3 (17%) 11 + 3 16 + 4 16 + 4 10 + 4
(7%) (11%) (14%) (17%) (21%) (20%) (20%) (29%)
16 15 + 1 16 + 2 14 + 2 15 + 3 15+3 (17%) 13 + 3 16 + 4 16 + 4 12 + 4
(6%) (11%) (13%) (17%) (19%) (20%) (20%) (25%)
18 16 + 1 16 + 2 16 + 2 15 + 3 15+3 (17%) 15 + 3 16 + 4 16 + 4 14 + 4
(6%) (11%) (11%) (17%) (17%) (20%) (20%) (22%)
20 16 + 1 16 + 2 16 + 2 16 + 3 16 + 3 (16%) 16 + 3 16 + 4 16 + 4 16 + 4
(6%) (11%) (11%) (16%) (16%) (20%) (20% ) (20%)
30 16 + 1 16 + 2 16 + 2 16 + 3 16 + 3 (16%) 16 + 3 16 + 4 16 + 4 16 + 4
(6%) (11%) (11%) (16%) (16%) (20%) (20%) (20%)

The parity overhead for mirrored data protection is not affected by the number of nodes in the cluster. The following table
describes the parity overhead for requested mirrored protection.

2x 3x 4x 5x 6x 7x 8x

50% 67% 75% 80% 83% 86% 88%

Related concepts
Requested data protection

288 Data layout with FlexProtect

 19
Large file size support
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Large file support
• Feature enablement requirements
• Restrictions after enabling large file support

Large file support

You can create files with a maximum size of 16 TiB.
OneFS can support a maximum file size of 16 TiB on supported cluster configurations when SyncIQ partner clusters are
also running version 8.2.2 or later on supported cluster configurations . You must ensure that your cluster(s) are one of the
supported cluster configurations. To know more about the supported cluster configurations, see https://support.emc.com/kb/
539758.
The isi_large_file -c command is used to check if feature requirements are met on cluster. The isi_large_file -l
command is used to show current large file settings.
After the feature is enabled, files can be created up to a size of 16 TiB on the cluster by any of the supported protocols.
First, the cluster(s) must be brought up to the feature release version and committed. Second, a feature enable script must be
run. This enable script ensures that the cluster meets the requirements to run the feature.

Feature enablement requirements

The isi_large_file -c command assesses the cluster configuration and the existing SyncIQ policies to determine if they
meet the requirements for the large file feature.
Disk Pool Requirements
Before you enable the feature, the isi_large_file -c command is used to check all disk pools to verify that your cluster is
one of the supported configurations.
SyncIQ Policy Requirements
Before you enable the feature, all SyncIQ policies are checked to ensure that all remote clusters are running a release that
supports this feature. In addition to all the remote clusters running a release that supports this feature, the clusters must be
checked to ensure that they also meet the disk pool requirements. This activity is done by running and passing the checks that
the isi_large_file -c command performs. No cluster in the SyncIQ chain of policies should enable the feature unless all
those clusters can pass the isi_large_file -c command check.
After the feature is enabled, you cannot disable it.

Restrictions after enabling large file support

After the isi_large_file -e command is enabled, there are certain restrictions that you may notice.
SyncIQ policies after enabling
The new SyncIQ policy partner clusters must have large file feature enabled. A new SyncIQ policy targeting a cluster without the
large file feature enabled fails to sync.
Disk pool management commands after enabling

Large file size support 289

Disk pool commands that deviate from the protection settings that are described in the list of supported hardware
configurations or in other ways reduce the size of disk pools. This situation may result in CELOG reports indicating that your disk
pools do not meet requirements for the large file feature. As a result, you might see that the performance degrades with the use
of large files.

290 Large file size support

 20
NDMP backup and recovery
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• NDMP backup and recovery overview
• NDMP two-way backup
• NDMP three-way backup
• Support for NDMP sessions on Generation 6 hardware
• Setting preferred IPs for NDMP three-way operations
• NDMP multi-stream backup and recovery
• Snapshot-based incremental backups
• NDMP backup and restore of SmartLink files
• NDMP protocol support
• Supported DMAs
• NDMP hardware support
• NDMP backup limitations
• NDMP performance recommendations
• Excluding files and directories from NDMP backups
• Configuring basic NDMP backup settings
• Managing NDMP user accounts
• NDMP environment variables overview
• Managing NDMP contexts
• Managing NDMP sessions
• Managing NDMP Fibre Channel ports
• Managing NDMP preferred IP settings
• Managing NDMP backup devices
• NDMP dumpdates file overview
• NDMP restore operations
• Sharing tape drives between clusters
• Managing snapshot based incremental backups
• Managing cluster performance for NDMP sessions
• Managing CPU usage for NDMP sessions

NDMP backup and recovery overview

OneFS enables you to back up and recover file-system data using the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP). From a
backup server, you can direct backup and recovery processes between a PowerScale cluster and backup devices such as tape
devices, media servers, and virtual tape libraries (VTLs).
Some of the NDMP features are described below:
● NDMP supports two-way and three-way backup models.
● With certain data management applications, NDMP supports backup restartable extension (BRE). The NDMP BRE allows
you to resume a failed backup job from the last checkpoint that was taken before the failure. The failed job is restarted
automatically and cannot be scheduled or started manually.
● You do not have to activate a SnapshotIQ license on the cluster to perform NDMP backups. If you have activated a
SnapshotIQ license on the cluster, you can generate a snapshot through the SnapshotIQ tool, and then back up the same
snapshot. If you back up a SnapshotIQ snapshot, OneFS does not create another snapshot for the backup.
● You can back up WORM domains through NDMP.

NDMP backup and recovery 291

 NOTE: NDMP backups that are created with PowerScale OneFS 9.5.0.0 are compatible only with 9.5.0.0 and later releases:
they are not backwards compatible. The data restore path is possible from older OneFS source to a newer version of OneFS
only as the target storage.

Example: Restoring content from a backup created with PowerScale OneFS 9.0 to a cluster with PowerScale OneFS 9.5
is supported. However an attempt to restore content that is created from a cluster with OneFS 9.5 to a pre-OneFS 9.5
cluster is not supported.

NDMP two-way backup

The NDMP two-way backup is also known as the local or direct NDMP backup. To perform NDMP two-way backups, you must
connect your PowerScale cluster to a Backup Accelerator node which is synonymous with a Fibre Attached Storage node, and
attach a tape device to that node. You must then use OneFS to detect the tape device before you can back up to that device.
You can connect supported tape devices directly to the Fibre Channel ports of a Fibre Attached Storage node. Alternatively,
you can connect Fibre Channel switches to the Fibre Channel ports on the Fibre Attached Storage node, and connect tape
and media changer devices to the Fibre Channel switches. For more information, see your Fibre Channel switch documentation
about zoning the switch to allow communication between the Fibre Attached Storage node and the connected tape and media
changer devices.
If you attach tape devices to a Fibre Attached Storage node, the cluster detects the devices when you start or restart the node
or when you re-scan the Fibre Channel ports to discover devices. If a cluster detects tape devices, the cluster creates an entry
for the path to each detected device.
If you connect a device through a Fibre Channel switch, multiple paths can exist for a single device. For example, if you connect
a tape device to a Fibre Channel switch, and then connect the Fibre Channel switch to two Fibre Channel ports, OneFS creates
two entries for the device, one for each path.
NOTE: Generation 6 nodes added to an InfiniBand back end network are supported with the A100 Backup Accelerator as
part of an NDMP 2-way backup solution. The A100 Backup Accelerator is not supported as part of an NDMP two-way
backup solution with an all-Generation 6 cluster with an Ethernet back end.

NDMP three-way backup

The NDMP three-way backup is also known as the remote NDMP backup.
During a three-way NDMP backup operation, a data management application (DMA) on a backup server instructs the cluster to
start backing up data to a tape media server that is either attached to the LAN or directly attached to the DMA. The NDMP
service runs on one NDMP Server and the NDMP tape service runs on a separate server. Both the servers are connected to
each other across the network boundary.

Support for NDMP sessions on Generation 6 hardware

You can enable two-way NDMP sessions by configuring them with the optional 2x10GbE + 2x8GB Fibre Channel network
interface card (NIC) on Generation 6 nodes. A 2x10GE + 2x8GB Fibre Channel NIC is a hybrid host bus adapter (HBA) that
enables two-way NDMP sessions over the Fibre Channel port. Contact Dell EMC Professional Services to enable support for the
2x10GbE + 2x8GB Fibre Channel NIC.

Setting preferred IPs for NDMP three-way operations

If you are using Avamar as your data management application (DMA) for an NDMP three-way operation in an environment with
multiple network interfaces, you can apply a preferred IP setting across a PowerScale cluster or to one or more subnets that
are defined in OneFS. A preferred IP setting is a list of prioritized IP addresses to which a data server or tape server connects
during an NDMP three-way operation.
The IP address on the NDMP server that receives the incoming request from the DMA decides the scope and precedence for
setting the preference. If the incoming IP address is within a subnet scope that has a preference, then the preference setting is
applied. If a subnet-specific preference does not exist but a cluster-wide preference exists, the cluster-wide preference setting
is applied. Subnet-specific preference always overrides the cluster-wide preference. If both the cluster-wide and subnet-specific

292 NDMP backup and recovery

preferences do not exist, the IP addresses within the subnet of the IP address receiving the incoming requests from the DMA
are used as the preferred IP addresses.
You can have one preferred IP setting per cluster or per network subnet.
You can specify a list of NDMP preferred IPs through the isi ndmp settings preferred-ips command.

NDMP multi-stream backup and recovery

You can use the NDMP multi-stream backup feature, in conjunction with certain data management applications (DMAs), to
speed up backups.

NOTE: To use Multistreaming, disable the Backup Restartable extension (BRE) on both Isilon and the DMA.

With multi-stream backup, you can use your DMA to specify multiple streams of data to back up concurrently. OneFS considers
all streams in a specific multi-stream backup operation to be part of the same backup context. A multi-stream backup context is
deleted if a multi-stream backup session is successful. If a specific stream fails, the backup context is retained for five minutes
after the backup operation completes and you can retry the failed stream within that time period.
If you used the NDMP multi-stream backup feature to back data up to tape drives, you can also recover that data in multiple
streams, depending on the DMA. In OneFS 8.0.0.0 and later releases, multi-stream backups are supported with CommVault
Simpana version 11.0 Service Pack 3 and NetWorker version 9.0.1. If you back up data using CommVault Simpana, a multi-stream
context is created, but data is recovered one stream at a time.

Snapshot-based incremental backups

You can implement snapshot-based incremental backups to increase the speed at which these backups are performed.
During a snapshot-based incremental backup, OneFS checks the snapshot taken for the previous NDMP backup operation and
compares it to a new snapshot. OneFS then backs up all files that was modified since the last snapshot was made.
Dell Technologies recommends snapshot-based incremental backup when the change rate is under 2%.
You can perform incremental backups without activating a SnapshotIQ license on the cluster. Although SnapshotIQ offers a
number of useful features, it does not enhance snapshot capabilities in NDMP backup and recovery.
Set the BACKUP_MODE environment variable to SNAPSHOT to enable snapshot-based incremental backups and ensure that the
DMA is sending the correct BASE_DATE and BACKUP_OPTIONS. If you enable snapshot-based incremental backups, OneFS
retains each snapshot taken for NDMP backups until a new backup of the same or lower level is performed. However, if you do
not enable snapshot-based incremental backups, OneFS automatically deletes each snapshot generated after the corresponding
backup is completed or canceled. Also, BACKUP_OPTIONS will change how many snapshot are kept and if periodic manual
deletion is needed.
NOTE: A snapshot-based incremental backup shares the dumpdates entries in dumpdates database along with the other
level-based backups. Therefore, make sure that you do not run snapshot-based backups and regular level-based backups
in the same backup paths. For example, make sure that you do not run a level 0 backup and snapshot-based incremental
backup in the same backup path or vice versa.
After setting the BACKUP_MODE environment variable, snapshot-based incremental backup works with certain data
management applications (DMAs) as listed in the next table.

Table 15. DMA support for snapshot-based incremental backups

DMA DMA-integrated
Generic Enabled only through an environment variable.
Bakbone Enabled only through an environment variable.
CommVault Yes, and can be enabled through the NDMP environment
variable.
Dell NetWorker Yes, and can be enabled through the NDMP environment
variable.
Symantec Enabled only through an environment variable.

NDMP backup and recovery 293

Table 15. DMA support for snapshot-based incremental backups (continued)
DMA DMA-integrated
Tivoli Enabled only through a cluster-based environment variable.
Symantec NetBackup Enabled only through a cluster-based environment variable.
Symantec Backup Exec Enabled only through a cluster-based environment variable.

Related concepts
Snapshot-based incremental backups

NDMP backup and restore of SmartLink files

You can perform NDMP backup and restore operations on data that has been archived to the cloud.
Backup and restore capabilities with CloudPools data include:
● Archiving SmartLink files when backing up from a cluster
● Restoring data, including SmartLink files, to the same cluster
● Restoring data, including SmartLink files, to another cluster
● Backing up version information with each SmartLink file, and restoring the Smartlink file after verifying the version
compatibility on the target cluster
NOTE: SmartLink files that are backed up with OneFS 8.2.0 and later releases cannot be restored to releases earlier than
8.2.0.
You specify how files are backed up and restored by setting the NDMP environment variables BACKUP_OPTIONS and
RESTORE_OPTIONS. See Administering NDMP in the PowerScale OneFS CLI Administration Guide for details about configuring
the backup settings and managing NDMP environment variables.
NOTE: DeepCopy and ComboCopy backups recall file data from the cloud. The data is not stored on disks. Recall of file
data may incur charges from cloud vendors.
With NDMP backup, by default, CloudPools supports the backup of SmartLink files that contain cloud metadata such as location
of the object. Other details such as version information, account information, local cache state, and unsynchronized cache data
that are associated with the SmartLink file are also backed up.
To prevent data loss when recovering SmartLink files with incompatible versions, use the NDMP combo copy backup option.
Use this option to back up SmartLink files with full data. Full data includes metadata and user data. Use the NDMP combo copy
option by setting the BACKUP_OPTIONS environment variable.
When the combo copy option is used for backup, you can use the combo copy, shallow copy, or deep copy restore options to
recover SmartLink files. You can specify these options by setting appropriate values to the RESTORE_OPTIONS environment
variable:
● The combo copy restore option restores SmartLink files from the backup stream only if their version is compatible with
the OneFS version on the target cluster. If the SmartLink file version is incompatible with the OneFS version on the target
cluster, a regular file is restored.
● If the version check operation on the target cluster is successful, the shallow copy restore operation restores the backed-up
SmartLink file as a SmartLink file on the target cluster.
● If the version check operation on the target cluster fails, the deep copy restore operation forces the recovery of the
SmartLink files as regular files on the target cluster .
● If you do not specify any restore operation, NDMP restores SmartLink files using the combo copy restore operation by
default.
● When you specify multiple restore options, the combo copy restore operation has the highest priority. The shallow copy
restore operation has the next highest priority. The deep copy restore operation has the lowest priority.
In CloudPools settings, you can set three retention periods that affect backed up SmartLink files and their associated cloud
data:
● Full Backup Retention Period for NDMP takes effect when the SmartLink file is backed up as part of a full backup. The
default is five years.
● Incremental Backup Retention Period for Incremental NDMP Backup and SyncIQ takes effect when a SmartLink file is
backed up as part of an incremental backup. The default is five years.

294 NDMP backup and recovery

● Cloud Data Retention Period defines the duration that data in the cloud is kept when its related SmartLink file is deleted. The
default is one week.
CloudPools ensures the validity of a backed-up SmartLink file within the cloud data retention period. Set the retention periods
appropriately to ensure that when the SmartLink file is restored from tape, it remains valid. CloudPools disallows restoring invalid
SmartLink files.
CloudPools ensures that a backed-up SmartLink file is still valid by checking the retention periods that are stored for the file. If
the retention time is past the restore time, CloudPools prevents NDMP from restoring the SmartLink file.
CloudPools ensures that the account under which the SmartLink files were originally created is not deleted. If it is deleted, both
NDMP backup and restore of SmartLink files fail.

NDMP protocol support

You can back up the PowerScale cluster data through version 3 or 4 of the NDMP protocol.
OneFS supports the following features of NDMP versions 3 and 4:
● Full (level 0) NDMP backups
● Incremental (levels 1-9) NDMP backups and Incremental Forever (level 10)
NOTE: In a level 10 NDMP backup, only data changed since the most recent incremental (level 1-9) backup or the last
level 10 backup is copied. By repeating level 10 backups, you can be assured that the latest versions of files in your data
set are backed up without having to run a full backup.
● Token-based NDMP backups
● NDMP TAR backup type
● Dump backup type
● Path-based and dir/node file history format
● Direct Access Restore (DAR)
● Directory DAR (DDAR)
● Including and excluding specific files and directories from backup
● Backup of file attributes
● Backup of Access Control Lists (ACLs)
● Backup of Alternate Data Streams (ADSs)
● Backup Restartable Extension (BRE)
● Backup and restore of HDFS attributes
OneFS supports connecting to clusters through IPv4 or IPv6.

Supported DMAs
NDMP backups are coordinated by a data management application (DMA) that runs on a backup server.
NOTE: All supported DMAs can connect to a PowerScale cluster through the IPv4 protocol. However, only some of the
DMAs support the IPv6 protocol for connecting to a PowerScale cluster.

NDMP hardware support

OneFS can back up data to and recover data from tape devices and virtual tape libraries (VTLs).

Supported tape For NDMP three-way backups, the data management application (DMA) determines the tape devices that
devices are supported.
Supported tape For both the two-way and three-way NDMP backups, OneFS supports all of the tape libraries that are
libraries supported by the DMA.
Supported virtual For three-way NDMP backups, the DMA determines the virtual tape libraries that will be supported.
tape libraries

NDMP backup and recovery 295

NDMP backup limitations
NDMP backups have the following limitations.
● Supports block sizes up to 512 KB.
● Does not support more than 4 KB file path length.
● Does not back up file system configuration data, such as file protection level policies and quotas.
● Does not support recovering data from a file system other than OneFS.
● Fibre Attached Storage nodes cannot interact with more than 4096 tape paths.
● The maximum length of the FILESYSTEM environment variable supported for a backup operation is 1024.
● Do not attempt to backup all of /ifs. This will fail.

NDMP performance recommendations

Consider the following recommendations to optimize OneFS NDMP backups.

General performance recommendations

● Install the latest patches for OneFS and your data management application (DMA).
● To obtain optimal throughput per session, Dell Technologies recommends not to run the maximum number of NDMP
concurrent sessions which is eight per Fibre Attached Storage node.
● NDMP backups result in very high Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs). You can reduce
your RPO and RTO by attaching one or more Fibre Attached Storage nodes to the cluster and then running two-way NDMP
backups.
● The throughput for a PowerScale cluster during the backup and recovery operations is dependent on the dataset and is
considerably reduced for small files and deep directory structures (>13).
● If you are backing up large numbers of small files, set up a separate schedule for each directory.
● If you are performing NDMP three-way backups, run multiple NDMP sessions on multiple nodes in your PowerScale cluster.
● Recover files through Directory DAR (DDAR) if you recover large numbers of files frequently.
● Use the largest tape record size available for your version of OneFS to increase throughput.
● If possible, do not include or exclude files from backup. Including or excluding files can affect backup performance, due to
filtering overhead.

SmartConnect recommendations
● A two-way NDMP backup session with SmartConnect requires Fibre Attached Storage node for backup and recovery
operations. However, a three-way NDMP session with SmartConnect does not require Fibre Attached Storage nodes for
these operations.
● For a NDMP two-way backup session with SmartConnect, connect to the NDMP session through a dedicated SmartConnect
zone consisting of a pool of Network Interface Cards (NICs) on the Fibre Attached Storage nodes.
● For a two-way NDMP backup session without SmartConnect, initiate the backup session through a static IP address or fully
qualified domain name of the Fibre Attached Storage node.
● For a three-way NDMP backup operation, the front-end Ethernet network or the interfaces of the nodes are used to serve
the backup traffic. Therefore, it is recommended that you configure a DMA to initiate an NDMP session only using the nodes
that are not already overburdened serving other workloads or connections.

Fibre Attached Storage recommendations

● Assign static IP addresses to Fibre Attached Storage nodes.
● Attach more Fibre Attached Storage nodes to larger clusters. The recommended number of Fibre Attached Storage nodes is
listed in the following table.

296 NDMP backup and recovery

 Table 16. Nodes per Fibre Attached Storage node
Node type Recommended number of nodes per Fibre Attached
Storage node
X-Series 3
NL-Series 3
S-Series 3
HD-Series 3
● Attach more Fibre Attached Storage nodes if you are backing up to more tape devices.

DMA-specific recommendations
● Enable parallelism for the DMA if the DMA supports this option. This allows OneFS to back up data to multiple tape devices
at the same time.

Excluding files and directories from NDMP backups

You can exclude files and directories from NDMP backup operations by specifying NDMP environment variables through a data
management application (DMA). If you include a file or directory, all other files and directories are automatically excluded from
backup operations. If you exclude a file or directory, all files and directories except the excluded one are backed up.
You can include or exclude files and directories by specifying the following character patterns. The examples given in the table
are valid only if the backup path is /ifs/data.

Table 17. NDMP file and directory matching wildcards

Character Description Example Includes or excludes the following directories
* Takes the place of any archive* archive1
character or characters
src/archive42_a/media

[] Takes the place of data_store_[a-f] /ifs/data/data_store_a

a range of letters or
data_store_[0-9] /ifs/data/data_store_c
numbers
/ifs/data/data_store_8

? Takes the place of any user_? /ifs/data/user_1

single character
/ifs/data/user_2

\ Includes a blank space user\ 1 /ifs/data/user 1

// Takes the place of a ifs//data//archive /ifs/data/archive

single slash (/)
*** Takes the place of a
single asterisk (*)
.. Ignores the pattern if it is ../home/john home/john
at the beginning of a path

NOTE: " " are required for Symantec NetBackup when multiple patterns are specified. The patterns are not limited to
directories.
Unanchored patterns such as home or user1 target a string of text that might belong to many files or directories. If a pattern
contains '/', it is an anchored pattern. An anchored pattern is always matched from the beginning of a path. A pattern in the
middle of a path is not matched. Anchored patterns target specific file pathnames, such as ifs/data/home. You can include
or exclude either types of patterns.
If you specify both the include and exclude patterns, the include pattern is first processed followed by the exclude pattern.

NDMP backup and recovery 297

If you specify both the include and exclude patterns, any excluded files or directories under the included directories would not be
backed up. If the excluded directories are not found in any of the included directories, the exclude specification would have no
effect.
NOTE: Specifying unanchored patterns can degrade the performance of backups. It is recommended that you avoid
unanchored patterns whenever possible.

Configuring basic NDMP backup settings

You can configure NDMP backup settings to control how these backups are performed on the PowerScale cluster. You can also
configure OneFS to interact with a specific data management application (DMA) for NDMP backups.

Configure and enable NDMP backup

OneFS prevents NDMP backups by default. Before you can perform NDMP backups, you must enable NDMP backups and
configure NDMP settings.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings.
2. In the Service area, click Enable NDMP Service.
3. Optional: From the DMA vendor list, select the name of the DMA vendor to manage backup operations. If your DMA vendor
is not included in the list, select generic. However, note that any vendors not included on the list are not officially supported
and might not function as expected.
4. In the NDMP Administrators area, click Add an NDMP Administrator to add a new administrator.
The Add NDMP Administrator dialog appears.
5. Enter an administrator name and password, confirm the password, and click Add NDMP Administrator.
6. Click Save Changes to save all the settings. Alternatively, click Revert Changes to undo the changes and revert back to
the previous settings.

View NDMP backup settings

You can view current NDMP backup settings. These settings define whether NDMP backup is enabled, the port through which
your data management application (DMA) connects to the PowerScale cluster, and the DMA vendor that OneFS is configured to
interact with.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings and view NDMP backup settings.
2. In the Settings area, review NDMP backup settings.

Disable NDMP backup

You can disable NDMP backup if you no longer want to use this backup method.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings.
2. In the Service area, clear the Enable NDMP service check box to disable NDMP backup.

Managing NDMP user accounts

You can create, delete, and modify the passwords of NDMP user accounts.

Create an NDMP administrator account

Before you can perform NDMP backups, you must create an NDMP administrator account through which your data
management application (DMA) can access the PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings.
2. In the NDMP Administrators area, click Add an NDMP Administrator.
The Add NDMP Administrator dialog appears.

298 NDMP backup and recovery

3. In the Add NDMP Administrator dialog box, in the Name field, type a name for the account.
NOTE: The NDMP administrator that you create in this step is applicable only for NDMP operations. You cannot link this
NDMP administrator to any other user, group, or identity on the cluster.

4. In the Password and Confirm password fields, type the password for the account.
NOTE: There are no special password policy requirements for an NDMP administrator.

5. Click Add NDMP Administrator.

View NDMP user accounts

You can view information about NDMP user accounts.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings.
2. In the NDMP Administrators area, review information about an NDMP administrator by selecting the check box
corresponding to an administrator and clicking View/Edit.

Modify the password of an NDMP administrator account

You can modify the password of an NDMP administrator account.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings.
2. In the NDMP Administrators area, select the check box next to the desired administrator name and click View/Edit.
The View NDMP Administrator Details dialog box appears.
3. Click Edit.
The Edit NDMP Administrator Details dialog box appears.
4. Type a new password, confirm the password, and then click Save Changes.

Delete an NDMP administrator account

You can delete an NDMP administrator account.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > NDMP Settings.
2. In the NDMP Administrators area, select the check box next to the desired administrator name and click Delete.
The administrator name is removed from the list of NDMP administrators.

NDMP environment variables overview

NDMP environment variables are associated with paths. When an environment variable path matches with the path of a backup
or a recovery operation, the environment variable is applied to that operation.
All the environment variables reside under the /ifs directory. There are two other virtual paths, namely, /BACKUP and /
RESTORE that contain environment variables. The environment variables under this path can be applied globally. The
environment variables under /BACKUP are applied to all the backup operations. The environment variables under /RESTORE
are applied to all the recovery operations. The global environment variables are applied only after the path-specific environment
variables are applied. So, the path-specific variables take precedence over the global variables.

Managing NDMP environment variables

In OneFS, you can manage NDMP backup and recovery operations by specifying default NDMP environment variables. You can
also override default NDMP environment variables through your data management application (DMA).
You can add, view, edit, and delete environment variables. The environment variables can be managed on a per-backup-path
basis. They are appended to the environment variables passed from a DMA in a backup or recovery session.
The following table lists the DMAs that allow you to directly set environment variables:

NDMP backup and recovery 299

Table 18. DMA support for environment variable setting
DMA Supported directly on the DMA Supported through OneFS command-line
interface
Generic Yes Yes
Bakbone No Yes
CommVault No Yes
Dell EMC No Yes
Symantec No Yes
Tivoli No Yes
Symantec NetBackup Yes Yes
Symantec Backup Exec No Yes

In case you cannot set an environment variable directly on a DMA for your NDMP backup or recovery operation, log in to an
PowerScale cluster through an SSH client and set the environment variable on the cluster through the isi ndmp settings
variables create command.

NDMP environment variable settings

You can view the NDMP environment variable settings and manage them as necessary.
The following settings appear in the Variables table:

Setting Description
Add Variables Add new path environment variables along with their values.
Path The path under the /ifs directory to store new environment
variables. If Path is set to "/BACKUP", the environment
variable is applied to all the backup operations. If Path is set
to "/RESTORE", the environment variable is applied to all the
restore operations.
Add Name/Value Add a name and value for the new environment variable.
Name Name of the environment variable.
Value Value set for the environment variable
Action Edit, view, or delete an environment variable at a specified
path.

Add an NDMP environment variable

You can add environment variables at a specified path that can be applied per-backup-path or globally.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. Click Add Variables to open the Add Path Variables dialog box.
3. In the Variable Settings area, specify the following parameters:
a. Specify or browse to a path under /ifs to store the environment variable.
NOTE:
● To set a global environment variable for backup and recovery operations, specify the /BACKUP path for a backup
operation and the /RESTORE path for a recovery operation.
● The backup path must include .snapshot/<snapshot name> when running a backup of a user-created
snapshot.

b. Click Add Name/Value, specify an environment variable name and value, and then click Create Variable.

300 NDMP backup and recovery

View NDMP environment variables
You can view details about the NDMP environment variables
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Variables table, click the check box corresponding to an environment variable and then click View/Edit.
3. In the Display Path Variables dialog box, review the details.

Edit an NDMP environment variable

You can edit an NDMP environment variable.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Variables table, click the check box corresponding to an environment variable and then click View/Edit.
3. In the Display Path Variables dialog box, click Edit Path Variables.
4. In the Edit Variables dialog box, click Add Name/Value and specify a new name and value for the environment variable.

Delete an NDMP environment variable

You can delete an NDMP environment variable.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Variables table, click the check box corresponding to an environment variable and then click Delete.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.
You can also delete an NDMP environment variable through the Edit Variables dialog box that appears when you click View/
Edit and then click Edit Path Variables.

NDMP environment variables

You can specify default settings of NDMP backup and recovery operations through NDMP environment variables. You can also
specify NDMP environment variables through your data management application (DMA).
Symantec NetBackup and NetWorker are the only two DMAs that allow you to directly set environment variables and propagate
them to OneFS.

Table 19. NDMP environment variables

Environment variable Valid values Default Description
BACKUP_FILE_LIST <file-path> None Triggers a file list backup.
Currently, only Networker and Symantec
NetBackup can pass environment variables to
OneFS.

BACKUP_MODE TIMESTAMP TIMESTAMP Enables or disables snapshot-based incremental

backups. To enable snapshot-based incremental
SNAPSHOT
backups, specify SNAPSHOT.
BACKUP_OPTIONS 0x00000400 0 This environment variable controls the behavior
of the backup operations.
0x00000200
The following settings are applicable only
0x00000100
to datasets containing the CloudPools-driven
0x00000001 SmartLink files:
0x00000002 0x00000400 Backs up SmartLink files
0x00000004 with full data. This is
the combo copy backup
option.

NDMP backup and recovery 301

Table 19. NDMP environment variables (continued)
Environment variable Valid values Default Description

0x00000200 Backs up all the cache

data. This is the shallow
copy backup option.
0x00000100 Reads SmartLink file data
from the cloud and backs
up the SmartLink files as
regular files. This is the
deep copy option.

0x00000001 Always adds DUMP_DATE

into the list of
environment variables
at the end of a
backup operation. The
DUMP_DATE value is the
time when the backup
snapshot was taken.
A DMA can use the
DUMP_DATE value to set
BASE_DATE for the next
backup operation.

0x00000002 Retains only the

last successful backup
snapshot of a token-based
backup in the dumpdates
file. Since a token-based
backup has no LEVEL,
its level is set to 10
by default. The snapshot
allows a faster-incremental
backup as the next
incremental backup after
the token-based backup is
done.

0x00000004 Retains all previous

successful backup
snapshots.
NOTE: Be sure to
periodically manually
delete any older
unneeded snapshots
since OneFS will
not know which are
not needed and will
not delete them
automatically.
After a faster-incremental
backup, the prior snapshot
is saved at level 10. In
order to avoid two
snapshots at the same
level, the prior snapshot is
kept at a lower level in the
dumpdates file. This
allows the BASE_DATE
and

302 NDMP backup and recovery

Table 19. NDMP environment variables (continued)
Environment variable Valid values Default Description

BACKUP_MODE=snapsho
t settings to trigger a
faster-incremental backup
instead of a token-based
backup. The environment
variable settings prompt
the NDMP server to
compare the BASE_DATE
value against the
timestamp in the
dumpdates file to find
the prior backup. Even
though the DMA fails the
latest faster-incremental
backup, OneFS retains the
prior snapshot. The DMA
can then retry the faster-
incremental backup in the
next backup cycle using
the BASE_DATE value of
the prior backup.

DIRECT Y N Enables or disables Direct Access Restore (DAR)

and Directory DAR (DDAR). The following values
N
are valid:

Y Enables DAR and DDAR.

N Disables DAR and DDAR.

EXCLUDE <file-matching-pattern> None If you specify this option, OneFS does not back
up files and directories that meet the specified
pattern. Separate multiple patterns with a space.
FILES <file-matching-pattern> None If you specify this option, OneFS backs up only
files and directories that meet the specified
pattern. Separate multiple patterns with a space.
NOTE: As a rule, files are matched first and
then the EXCLUDE pattern is applied.

HIST <file-history-format> Y Specifies the file history format.

The following values are valid:

D Specifies directory or node

file history.
F Specifies path-based file
history.
Y Specifies the default file
history format determined
by your NDMP backup
settings.
N Disables file history.

LEVEL <integer> 0 Specifies the level of NDMP backup to perform.

The following values are valid:

0 Performs a full NDMP

backup.

NDMP backup and recovery 303

Table 19. NDMP environment variables (continued)
Environment variable Valid values Default Description

1-9 Performs an incremental

backup at the specified
level.
10 Performs Incremental
Forever backups.

MSB_RETENTION_PERIOD Integer 300 sec For a multi-stream backup session, specifies the
backup context retention period.
MSR_RETENTION_PERIOD 0 through 60*60*24 600 sec For a multi-stream restore session, specifies the
recovery context retention period within which a
recovery session can be retried.
RECURSIVE Y Y For restore sessions only. Specifies that the
restore session should recover files or sub-
N
directories under a directory automatically.
RESTORE_BIRTHTIME Y N Specifies whether to recover the birth time for a
recovery session.
N

RESTORE_HARDLINK Y N For a single-threaded restore session, determines

_BY_TABLE whether OneFS recovers hard links by building
N
a hard-link table during recovery operations.
Specify this option if hard links are incorrectly
backed up and recovery operations are failing.
If a recovery operation fails because hard
links were incorrectly backed up, the following
message appears in the NDMP backup logs:

Bad hardlink path for <path>

NOTE: This variable is not effective for a

parallel restore operation.

RESTORE_OPTIONS 0x00000001 0 This environment variable controls the behavior

of the restore operations.
0x00000002
0x00000004 0x00000001 Performs a single-
threaded restore
0x00000100 operation.
0x00000200 0x00000002 Restores attributes to the
existing directories.
0x00000004 Creates intermediate
directories with default
attributes. The default
behavior is to get
attributes from the first
object under a given
directory.

The following settings are applicable only to

datasets backed up with the combo copy backup
option:

0x00000100 Forces deep copy

restoration of the
SmartLink files. That is,
restores the backed up

304 NDMP backup and recovery

Table 19. NDMP environment variables (continued)
Environment variable Valid values Default Description

SmartLink file as a regular

file on the target cluster.

0x00000200 Forces shallow copy

restoration of the
SmartLink files. That
is, restores the backed
up SmartLink file as a
SmartLink file on the
target cluster.

UPDATE Y Y Determines whether OneFS updates the

dumpdates file. The default is to perform a
N
combo copy restore.

Y OneFS updates the

dumpdates file.
N OneFS does not update
the dumpdates file.

Related concepts
Excluding files and directories from NDMP backups

Setting environment variables for backup and restore operations

You can set environment variables to support the backup and restore operations for your NDMP session.
You can set environment variables through a data management application (DMA) or the command-line interface. Alternatively,
you can set global environment variables. The precedence to apply their settings for a backup or restore operation follows:
● The environment variables specified through a DMA have the highest precedence.
● Path-specific environment variables specified by the isi ndmp settings variables take the next precedence.
● Global environment variable settings of "/BACKUP" or "/RESTORE" take the lowest precedence.
You can set environment variables to support different types of backup operations as described in the following scenarios:
● If the BASE_DATE environment variable is set to any value and if you set the BACKUP_MODE environment variable to
SNAPSHOT, the LEVEL environment variable is automatically set to 10 and an Incremental Forever backup is performed.
● If the BASE_DATE environment variable is set to 0, a full backup is performed.
● If the BACKUP_MODE environment variable is set to snapshot and the BASE_DATE environment variable is not set to 0,
the entries in the dumpdates file are read and compared with the BASE_DATE environment variable. If an entry is found
and a prior valid snapshot is found, a faster incremental backup is performed.
● If the BACKUP_MODE environment variable is set to snapshot, the BASE_DATE environment variable is not set to 0, and if
no entries are found in the dumpdates file and no prior valid snapshots are found, a token-based backup is performed using
the value of the BASE_DATE environment variable.
● If the BASE_DATE environment variable is set, the BACKUP_OPTIONS environment variable is set to 0x00000001 by
default.
● If the BACKUP_MODE environment variable is set to snapshot, the BACKUP_OPTIONS environment variable is set to
0x00000002 by default and only the last successful backup snapshot is retained.
● If the BACKUP_OPTIONS environment variable is set to 0x00000004 , all previous successful backup snapshots are saved
and should be periodically manually deleted as they are not needed.

NDMP backup and recovery 305

Managing NDMP contexts
Each NDMP backup, restore, restartable backup, and multi-stream backup process creates a context. The NDMP server stores
the corresponding working files in the context. You can view or delete a context.
NOTE: If you delete a restartable backup context, you cannot restart the corresponding backup session.

NDMP context settings

You can view the details of NDMP contexts and manage those contexts.
The following settings appear in the Contexts table:

Setting Description
Type The context type. It can be one of backup, restartable backup,
or restore.
ID An identifier for a backup or restore job. A backup or restore
job consists of one or more streams all of which are identified
by this identifier. This identifier is generated by the NDMP
backup daemon.
Start Time The time when the context started in month date time year
format.
Actions View or delete a selected context.
Status Status of the context. The status shows up as active if a
backup or restore job is initiated and continues to remain
active until the backup stream has completed or errored out.
Path The path where all the working files for the selected context
are stored.
MultiStream Specifies whether the multistream backup process is enabled.
Lead Session ID The identifier of the first backup or restore session
corresponding to a backup or restore operation.
Sessions A table with a list of all the sessions that are associated with
the selected context.

View NDMP contexts

You can view information about the NDMP backup, restartable backup, and recovery contexts.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Contexts.
2. In the Contexts table, click the check box corresponding to a context that you want to review and click View Details.
3. Review the information about the context in the Display Backup Context dialog box.

Delete an NDMP context

You can delete an NDMP context.
Backup and restore contexts have retention periods beyond which the contexts are deleted automatically. However, you can
choose to delete a context before its retention period to free up resources. You cannot delete contexts with active sessions.
Also, you cannot delete backup contexts with active BRE contexts. You can delete BRE contexts only if they are not a part of
active sessions.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Contexts.
2. In the Contexts table, select a context and click Delete.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

306 NDMP backup and recovery

Managing NDMP sessions
You can view the status of NDMP sessions or terminate a session that is in progress.

NDMP session information

Data management applications (DMAs) establish sessions with the NDMP daemon running on the Fibre Attached Storage node.
The communication from the DMA with the NDMP daemon is managed under the context of a session.
The following items appear in the Sessions table:

Item Description
Session Specifies the unique identification number that OneFS assigns to the session.
Elapsed Specifies the time that has elapsed since the session started.
Transferred Specifies the amount of data that was transferred during the session.
Throughput Specifies the average throughput of the session over the past five minutes.
Client/Remote Specifies the IP address of the backup server that the data management application
(DMA) is running on. If a NDMP three-way backup or restore operation is currently
running, the IP address of the remote tape media server also appears.
Mover/Data Specifies the current state of the data mover and the data server. The first word
describes the activity of the data mover. The second word describes the activity of the
data server.
The data mover and data server send data to and receive data from each other
during backup and restore operations. The data mover is a component of the backup
server that receives data during backups and sends data during restore operations. The
data server is a component of OneFS that sends data during backups and receives
information during restore operations.
NOTE: When a session ID instead of a state appears, the session is automatically
redirected.
The following states might appear:

Active The data mover or data server is currently sending or receiving

data.
Paused The data mover is temporarily unable to receive data. While the
data mover is paused, the data server cannot send data to the
data mover. The data server cannot be paused.
Idle The data mover or data server is not sending or receiving data.
Listen The data mover or data server is waiting to connect to the data
server or data mover.

Operation Specifies the type of operation (backup or restore) that is currently in progress. If no
operation is in progress, this field is blank.

B ({M} {F} Where:

[L[0-10] | T0 |
Ti | S[0-10]] {r | [ a ]—a is required
R})+ { a }—a is optional
a | b—a or b but not at the same time
A(B)—The session is an agent session for a redirected backup
operation
M—Multi-stream backup
F—File list

NDMP backup and recovery 307

Item Description

L—Level-based
T—Token-based
S—Snapshot mode
s—Snapshot mode and a full backup (when root dir is new)
r—Restartable backup
R—Restarted backup
+—Backup is running with multiple state threads for better
performance
0-10—Dump Level

R ({M|s}[F | D | Where:
S]{h})
A(B)—The session is an agent session for a redirected restore
operation
M—Multi-stream restore
s—Single-threaded restore (when RESTORE_OPTIONS=1)
F—Full restore
D—DAR
S—Selective restore
h—Restore hardlinks by table

Source/Destination If an operation is currently in progress, specifies the /ifs directories that are affected
by the operation. If a backup is in progress, displays the path of the source directory
that is being backed up. If a restore operation is in progress, displays the path of the
directory that is being restored along with the destination directory to which the tape
media server is restoring data. If you are restoring data to the same location that you
backed up your data from, the same path appears twice.
Device Specifies the name of the tape or media changer device that is communicating with the
PowerScale cluster.
Mode Specifies how OneFS is interacting with data on the backup media server through the
following options:

Read/Write OneFS is reading and writing data during a backup operation.

Read OneFS is reading data during a restore operation.
Raw The DMA has access to tape drives, but the drives do not contain
writable tape media.

Actions Allows you to probe or delete a session.

NDMP backup and restore operations

Examples of active NDMP backup sessions indicated through the Operation field that is described in the previous table are as
shown:

B(T0): Token based full backup

B(Ti): Token based incremental backup
B(L0): Level based full backup
B(L5): Level 5 incremental backup
B(S0): Snapshot based full backup
B(S3): Snapshot based level 3 backup
B(FT0): Token based full filelist backup
B(FL4): Level 4 incremental filelist backup
B(L0r): Restartable level based full backup
B(S4r): Restartable snapshot based level 4 incremental backup
B(L7R): Restarted level 7 backup

308 NDMP backup and recovery

 B(FT1R): Restarted token based incremental filelist backup
B(ML0): Multi-stream full backup

Examples of active NDMP restore sessions indicated through the Operation field that is described in the previous table are as
shown:

R(F): Full restore

R(D): DAR
R(S): Selective restore
R(MF): Multi-stream full restore
R(sFh): single threaded full restore with restore hardlinks by table option

Related tasks
View NDMP sessions

View NDMP sessions

You can view information about active NDMP sessions.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Sessions.
2. In the Sessions table, review information about NDMP sessions.

Related references
NDMP session information

Abort an NDMP session

You can abort an NDMP backup or restore session at any time.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Sessions.
2. In the Sessions table, click the check box corresponding to the session you want to abort, and click Delete.
3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete.

Managing NDMP Fibre Channel ports

You can manage the Fibre Channel ports that connect tape and media changer devices to a Fibre Attached Storage node. You
can also enable, disable, or modify the settings of an NDMP Fibre Channel port.

NDMP backup port settings

OneFS assigns default settings to each Fibre Channel port on the Fibre Attached Storage node attached to the PowerScale
cluster. These settings identify the port and determine how the port interacts with the NDMP backup devices.
The following settings appear in the Ports table:

Setting Description
LNN Specifies the logical node number of the Fibre Attached Storage node.
Port Specifies the name and port number of the Fibre Attached Storage node.
Topology Specifies the type of Fibre Channel topology that is supported by the port. Options are:

Point to Point A single backup device or Fibre Channel switch directly connected to the
port.
Loop Multiple backup devices connected to a single port in a circular formation.

NDMP backup and recovery 309

Setting Description

Auto Automatically detects the topology of the connected device. This is the
recommended setting and is required for a switched-fabric topology.

WWNN Specifies the world wide node name (WWNN) of the port. This name is the same for each port on
a given node.
WWPN Specifies the world wide port name (WWPN) of the port. This name is unique to the port.
Rate Specifies the rate at which data is sent through the port. The rate can be set to 1 Gb/s, 2
Gb/s, 4 Gb/s, 8 Gb/s, and Auto. 8 Gb/s is available for A100 nodes only. If set to Auto, the
Fibre Channel chip negotiates with connected Fibre Channel switch or Fibre Channel devices to
determine the rate. Auto is the recommended setting.

Actions Allows you to view and edit the port settings.

Related tasks
Modify NDMP backup port settings
View NDMP backup ports

Enable or disable an NDMP backup port

You can enable or disable an NDMP backup port.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Ports.
2. In the row of a port, click View/Edit.
The View Port dialog box appears.
3. Click the Edit Port button.
The Edit Port dialog box appears.
4. From the State drop-down list, select Enable or Disable.
5. Click the Save Changes button.

View NDMP backup ports

You can view information about Fibre Channel ports of Fibre Attached Storage nodes attached to an PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Ports.
2. In the Ports table, review information about NDMP backup ports. For more detailed information about a specific port, click
the View/Edit button corresponding to that port.

Related references
NDMP backup port settings

Modify NDMP backup port settings

You can modify the settings of an NDMP backup port.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Ports.
2. Click the View/Edit button corresponding to the port you want to modify.
The View Port dialog box appears.
3. Click the Edit Port button.
The Edit Port dialog box appears.
4. Edit the settings in the Edit Port dialog box, and click Save Changes when finished.

Related references
NDMP backup port settings

310 NDMP backup and recovery

Managing NDMP preferred IP settings
If you are performing NDMP three-way operations using Avamar in an environment with multiple network interfaces, you can
create, modify, delete, list, and view cluster-wide or subnet-specific NDMP preferred IP settings.
You can manage NDMP preferred IP settings only through the OneFS command-line interface.

Create an NDMP preferred IP setting

If you are performing an NDMP three-way backup or restore operation using Avamar, you can create a cluster-wide or a
subnet-specific NDMP preferred IP setting.
● Create an NDMP preferred IP setting by running the isi ndmp settings preferred-ips create command.
For example, run the following command to apply a preferred IP setting for a cluster:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips create cluster groupnet0.subnet0,10gnet.subnet0

Run the command as shown in the following example to apply a preferred IP setting for a subnet group:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips create 10gnet.subnet0 10gnet.subnet0,groupnet0.subnet0

Modify an NDMP preferred IP setting

If you are performing an NDMP three-way backup or restore operation using Avamar, you can modify an NDMP preferred IP
setting by adding or deleting a subnet group.
● Modify an NDMP preferred IP setting by running the isi ndmp settings preferred-ips modify command.
For example, run the following commands to modify the NDMP preferred IP setting for a cluster:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips modify 10gnet.subnet0 --add-data-subnets

10gnet.subnet0,groupnet0.subnet0

Run the command as shown in the following example to modify the NDMP preferred IP setting for a subnet:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips modify 10gnet.subnet0 --remove-data-subnets

groupnet0.subnet0

List NDMP preferred IP settings

If you are performing an NDMP three-way backup or restore operation using Avamar, you can list all the NDMP preferred IP
settings.
● List the NDMP preferred IP settings by running the isi ndmp settings preferred-ips list command.
For example, run the following command to list the NDMP preferred IP settings:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips list

View NDMP preferred IP settings

If you are performing an NDMP three-way backup or restore operation using Avamar, you can view the NDMP preferred IP
settings for a subnet or cluster.
● View an NDMP preferred IP setting by running the isi ndmp settings preferred-ips view command.
For example, run the following command to view the NDMP preferred IP setting for a subnet:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips view --scope=10gnet.subnet0

NDMP backup and recovery 311

Delete NDMP preferred IP settings
If you are performing an NDMP three-way backup or restore operation using Avamar, you can delete an NDMP preferred IP
setting for a subnet or cluster.
● Delete NDMP preferred IP settings by running the isi ndmp settings preferred-ips delete command.
For example, run the following command to delete the preferred IP setting for a subnet:

isi ndmp settings preferred-ips delete --scope=10gnet.subnet0

Managing NDMP backup devices

After you attach a tape or media changer device to a Fibre Attached Storage node, you must configure OneFS to detect and
establish a connection to the device. After the connection between the cluster and the backup device is established, you can
modify the name that the cluster has assigned to the device, or disconnect the device from the cluster.
In case the virtual tape library (VTL) device has multiple LUNs, you must configure LUN0 so that all the LUNs are detected
properly.

NDMP backup device settings

OneFS creates a device entry for each device you attach to the cluster through a Fibre Attached Storage node.
The following table describes the settings you can review for a added tape or media changer device in the Devices table and
also through the View Tape Devices dialog box that appears when you select a device and click View/Edit:

Setting Description
Name Specifies a device name assigned by OneFS.
State Indicates whether the device is in use. If data is currently being backed up to or restored from the
device, Read/Write appears. If the device is not in use, Closed appears.

WWNN Specifies the world wide node name of the device.

Product (Vendor/ Specifies the name of the device vendor and the model name or number of the device.
Model/Revision)
Serial Number Specifies the serial number of the device.
Actions Allows you to view, edit, or delete a device.
Path Specifies the name of the Fibre Attached Storage node that is attached to the device and the port
numbers to which the device is connected.
LUN Specifies the logical unit number (LUN) of the device.
State Specifies whether the device is active or inactive.
WWPN Specifies the world wide port name (WWPN) of the port on the tape or media changer device.
Port ID Specifies the port ID of the device that binds the logical device to the physical device.
Open Count A counter of the active and open connections to the device.
Device Name Specifies the regular device name that appears under the FreeBSD operating system.
Pass Name Specifies the pass-thru device name that appears under the FreeBSD operating system.

Related tasks
Detect NDMP backup devices
View NDMP backup devices

312 NDMP backup and recovery

Detect NDMP backup devices
If you connect a tape device or media changer to a Fibre Attached Storage node, you must configure OneFS to detect the
device. Only then can OneFS back up data to and restore data from the device. In OneFS, you can scan a specific PowerScale
node, a specific port, or all ports on all nodes.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Devices.
2. Click the Discover Devices link.
The Discover Devices dialog appears.
3. Optional: To scan only a specific node for NDMP devices, from the Node list, select a node.
4. Optional: To scan only a specific port for NDMP devices, from the Ports list, select a port.
If you specify a port and a node, only the specified port on the node is scanned. However, if you specify only a port, the
specified port will be scanned on all nodes.

5. Optional: To remove entries for devices or paths that have become inaccessible, select the Delete inaccessible paths or
devices check box.
6. Click Submit.
For each device that is detected, an entry is added to either the Tape Devices or Media Changers tables.

Related references
NDMP backup device settings

View NDMP backup devices

You can view information about tape and media changer devices that are currently attached to your PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Devices.
2. In the Tape Devices and Media Changer Devices tables, review the information about NDMP backup devices.

Related references
NDMP backup device settings

Modify the name of an NDMP backup device

You can modify the name of an NDMP backup device in OneFS.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Devices.
2. In the Tape Devices table, or the Media Changer Devices table, click the check box corresponding to the name of a
backup device entry.
3. Click View/Edit.
The View Tape Devices or View Media Changers dialog box appears.
4. Click Edit Tape Device.
The Edit Tape Devices or Edit Media Changers dialog box appears.
5. Edit the device name.
6. Click Save Changes.

Delete an entry for an NDMP backup device

If you physically remove an NDMP device from an PowerScale cluster, OneFS retains the entry for the device. You can delete
a device entry for a removed device. You can also remove the device entry for a device that is still physically attached to the
cluster; this causes OneFS to disconnect from the device.
If you remove a device entry for a device that is connected to the cluster, and you do not physically disconnect the device,
OneFS will detect the device the next time it scans the ports. You cannot remove a device entry for a device that is currently in
use.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Devices.

NDMP backup and recovery 313

2. In the Tape Devices table or the Media Changer Devices table, click the check box corresponding to the device that you
want to remove.
3. Click Delete.
4. In the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.

NDMP dumpdates file overview

When you set the UPDATE environment variable to Y, the NDMP daemon maintains a dumpdates file to record all but
the token-based backup sessions. The timestamp within the dumpdates file helps identify the changed files for the next
level-based backup. The entries within the dumpdates file also provide information about the last backup session at a given
path and the type of backup session which can be a full, level-based incremental, or snapshot-based backup. This information
determines the type of incremental backup you must run subsequently. The entries within the dumpdates file may be obsolete
when the backup path is removed. In such a case, all the obsolete entries can be removed from the dumpdates file.

Managing the NDMP dumpdates file

You can view or delete entries in the NDMP dumpdates file.

NDMP dumpdates file settings

You can view details about the entries in the NDMP dumpdates file and delete them if required.
The following settings appear in the Dumpdates table:

Setting Description
Date Specifies the date when an entry was added to the
dumpdates file.

ID The identifier for an entry in the dumpdates file.

Level Specifies the backup level.

Path Specifies the path where the dumpdates file is saved.

Snapshot ID Identifies changed files for the next level of backup. This ID
is applicable only for snapshot-based backups. In all the other
cases, the value is 0.
Actions Deletes an entry from the dumpdates file.

View entries in the NDMP dumpdates file

You can view all the entries in the NDMP dumpdates file.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Dumpdates table, view information about the entries in the NDMP dumpdates file.

Delete entries from the NDMP dumpdates file

You can delete entries from the NDMP dumpdates file.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Dumpdates table, click Delete against the entry that you want to delete.
3. In the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.

314 NDMP backup and recovery

NDMP restore operations
NDMP supports the following types of restore operations:
● NDMP parallel restore (multi-threaded process)
● NDMP serial restore (single-threaded process)

NDMP parallel restore operation

Parallel (multi-threaded) restore enables faster full or partial restore operations by writing data to the cluster as fast as the data
can be read from the tape. Parallel restore is the default restore mechanism in OneFS.
The restore operation can restore multiple files concurrently through the parallel restore mechanism.

NDMP serial restore operation

For troubleshooting or for other purposes, you can run a serial restore operation which uses fewer system resources. The serial
restore operation runs as a single-threaded process and restores one file at a time to the specified path.

Specify a NDMP serial restore operation

You can use the RESTORE_OPTIONS environment variable to specify a serial (single-threaded) restore operation.
1. In your data management application, configure a restore operation as you normally would.
2. Make sure that the RESTORE_OPTIONS environment variable is set to 1 on your data management application.
If the RESTORE_OPTIONS environment variable is not already set to 1, specify the isi ndmp settings variables
modify command from the OneFS command line. The following command specifies serial restore for the /ifs/data/
projects directory:

isi ndmp settings variables modify /ifs/data/projects RESTORE_OPTIONS 1

The value of the path option must match the FILESYSTEM environment variable that is set during the backup operation.
The value that you specify for the name option is case sensitive.
3. Start the restore operation.

Sharing tape drives between clusters

Multiple PowerScale clusters or an PowerScale cluster and a third-party NAS system can be configured to share a single tape
drive, which helps to maximize the use of the tape infrastructure in your data center.
In your data management application (DMA), you must configure NDMP to control the tape drive and ensure that it is shared
properly.
NOTE: Library Media Changers cannot be shared unless the library is partitioned.

The following configurations are supported.

Supported DMAs Tested configurations

● NetWorker 8.0 and later ● Isilon Backup Accelerator node or Fibre Attached Storage node
● Symantec NetBackup 7.5 and later with a second Backup Accelerator node or Fibre Attached
Storage node.
● Isilon Backup Accelerator node or Fibre Attached Storage node
with a NetApp storage system

NetWorker refers to the tape drive sharing capability as DDS (dynamic drive sharing). Symantec NetBackup uses the term SSO
(shared storage option). Consult your DMA vendor documentation for configuration instructions.

NDMP backup and recovery 315

Managing snapshot based incremental backups
After you enable snapshot-based incremental backups, you can view and delete the snapshots created for these backups.

Related references
NDMP environment variables

Enable snapshot-based incremental backups for a directory

You can configure OneFS to perform snapshot-based incremental backups for a directory by default. You can also override the
default setting in your data management application (DMA).
● Run the isi ndmp settings variable create command.
The following command enables snapshot-based incremental backups for /ifs/data/media:

isi ndmp settings variables create /ifs/data/media BACKUP_MODE SNAPSHOT

Related references
NDMP environment variables

View snapshots for snapshot-based incremental backups

You can view snapshots generated for snapshot-based incremental backups.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Dumpdates table, view information about the snapshot-based incremental backups.

Related concepts
Excluding files and directories from NDMP backups

Delete snapshots for snapshot-based incremental backups

You can delete snapshots created for snapshot-based incremental backups.
NOTE: It is recommended that you do not delete snapshots created for snapshot-based incremental backups. If all
snapshots are deleted for a path, the next backup performed for the path is a full backup.
1. Click Data Protection > NDMP > Environment Settings.
2. In the Dumpdates table, click Delete against the entry that you want to delete.
3. In the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.

Related references
NDMP environment variables

Managing cluster performance for NDMP sessions

NDMP Redirector distributes NDMP loads automatically over nodes by using the optional 2x10GbE + 2x8GB Fibre Channel
NIC on Generation 6 nodes. You can enable NDMP Redirector to automatically distribute NDMP two-way sessions to nodes
with lesser loads. The load-distribution capability results in improved cluster performance when multiple NDMP operations are
initiated.
NDMP Redirector checks for the following before redirecting the NDMP operation:
● CPU usage

316 NDMP backup and recovery

● The number of running NDMP operations
● The availability of tape devices

Enable NDMP Redirector to manage cluster performance

You must enable NDMP Redirector in order to automatically distribute NDMP two-way sessions to nodes with lesser loads.
Make sure that the cluster is committed before enabling NDMP Redirector.
1. Run the following command through the command line interface to enable NDMP Redirector:

isi ndmp settings global modify --enable-redirector true

2. View the setting change by running the following command:

isi ndmp settings global modify

A sample output of the previous command is shown:

Service: False
Port: 10000
DMA: generic
Bre Max Num Contexts: 64
Context Retention Duration: 300
Smartlink File Open Timeout: 10
Enable Redirector: True

Managing CPU usage for NDMP sessions

NDMP Throttler manages the CPU usage during NDMP two-way sessions on 6th Generation nodes. The nodes are then
available to adequately support other system activities.

Enable NDMP Throttler

You must enable NDMP Throttler in order to manage CPU usage of NDMP sessions on 6th Generation nodes.
1. Run the following command through the command line interface to enable NDMP Throttler:

isi ndmp settings global modify --enable-throttler true

2. View the setting change by running the following command:

isi ndmp settings global view

A sample output of the previous command is shown:

Service: False
Port: 10000
DMA: generic
Bre Max Num Contexts: 64
Context Retention Duration: 600
Smartlink File Open Timeout: 10
Enable Throttler: True
Throttler CPU Threshold: 50

3. If required, change the throttler CPU threshold as shown in the following example:

isi ndmp settings global modify -–throttler-cpu-threshold 80

NDMP backup and recovery 317

 21
File retention with SmartLock
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• SmartLock overview
• Compliance mode
• Enterprise mode
• SmartLock directories
• Replication and backup with SmartLock
• SmartLock license functionality
• SmartLock considerations
• Set the compliance clock
• View the compliance clock
• Creating a SmartLock directory
• Managing SmartLock directories
• Managing files in SmartLock directories

SmartLock overview
With the SmartLock software module, you can protect files on a PowerScale cluster from being modified, overwritten, or
deleted. To protect files in this manner, you must activate a SmartLock license.
With SmartLock, you can identify a directory in OneFS as a WORM domain. WORM stands for write once, read many. All files
within the WORM domain can be committed to a WORM state, meaning that those files cannot be overwritten, modified, or
deleted.
After a file is removed from a WORM state, you can delete the file. However, you can never modify a file that has been
committed to a WORM state, even after it is removed from a WORM state.
In OneFS, SmartLock can be deployed in one of two modes: compliance mode or enterprise mode.

Compliance mode
SmartLock compliance mode enables you to protect your data in compliance with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule
17a-4. Rule 17a-4 is aimed at securities brokers and dealers, and specifies that records of all securities transactions must be
archived in a nonrewritable, nonerasable manner.
NOTE: You can configure a PowerScale cluster for SmartLock compliance mode only during the initial cluster configuration
process, before you activate a SmartLock license. A cluster cannot be converted to SmartLock compliance mode after the
cluster is initially configured and put into production.
Configuring a cluster for SmartLock compliance mode disables the root user. You cannot to log in to that cluster through the
root user account. Instead, you can log in to the cluster through the compliance administrator account that is configured during
initial SmartLock compliance mode configuration.
When you are logged in to a SmartLock compliance mode cluster through the compliance administrator account, you can
perform administrative tasks through the sudo command.

318 File retention with SmartLock

Enterprise mode
You can create SmartLock domains and apply WORM status to files by activating a SmartLock license on a cluster in standard
configuration. This is referred to as SmartLock enterprise mode.
SmartLock enterprise mode does not conform to SEC regulations, but does enable you to create SmartLock directories and
apply SmartLock controls to protect files so that they cannot be rewritten or erased. In addition, the root user account remains
on your system.

SmartLock directories
In a SmartLock directory, you can commit a file to a WORM state manually or you can configure SmartLock to commit the file
automatically. Before you can create SmartLock directories, you must activate a SmartLock license on the cluster.
You can create two types of SmartLock directories: enterprise and compliance. However, you can create compliance directories
only if the PowerScale cluster has been set up in SmartLock compliance mode during initial configuration.
Enterprise directories enable you to protect your data without restricting your cluster to comply with regulations defined by U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission rule 17a-4. If you commit a file to a WORM state in an enterprise directory, the file can
never be modified and cannot be deleted until the retention period passes.
However, if you own a file and have been assigned the ISI_PRIV_IFS_WORM_DELETE privilege, or you are logged in through
the root user account, you can delete the file through the privileged delete feature before the retention period passes.
The privileged delete feature is not available for compliance directories. Enterprise directories reference the system clock to
facilitate time-dependent operations, including file retention.
Compliance directories enable you to protect your data in compliance with the regulations defined by U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission rule 17a-4. If you commit a file to a WORM state in a compliance directory, the file cannot be modified
or deleted before the specified retention period has expired. You cannot delete committed files, even if you are logged in
to the compliance administrator account. Compliance directories reference the compliance clock to facilitate time-dependent
operations, including file retention.
You must set the compliance clock before you can create compliance directories. You can set the compliance clock only once,
after which you cannot modify the compliance clock time. You can increase the retention time of WORM committed files on an
individual basis, if desired, but you cannot decrease the retention time.
The compliance clock is controlled by the compliance clock daemon. Root and compliance administrator users could disable
the compliance clock daemon, which would have the effect of increasing the retention period for all WORM committed files.
However, this is not recommended.
NOTE: Using WORM exclusions, files inside a WORM compliance or enterprise domain can be excluded from having a
WORM state. All the files inside the excluded directory will behave as normal non-Smartlock protected files. For more
information, see the OneFS CLI Administration Guide.

Replication and backup with SmartLock

OneFS enables both compliance and enterprise SmartLock directories to be replicated or backed up to a target cluster.
If you are replicating SmartLock directories with SyncIQ, it is recommended that you configure all nodes on the source and
target clusters with Network Time Protocol (NTP) peer mode to ensure that the node clocks are synchronized. For compliance
clusters, it is recommended that you configure all nodes on the source and target clusters with NTP peer mode before you set
the compliance clocks. Configuring all nodes with NTP peer mode sets the source and target clusters to the same time initially
and helps to ensure compliance with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule 17a-4.
NOTE: If you replicate data to a SmartLock directory, do not configure SmartLock settings for that directory until you are
no longer replicating data to the directory. Configuring an autocommit time period for a SmartLock target directory, for
example, can cause replication jobs to fail. If the target directory commits a file to a WORM state, and the file is modified on
the source cluster, the next replication job will fail because it cannot overwrite the committed file.
If you back up data to an NDMP device, all SmartLock metadata relating to the retention date and commit status is transferred
to the NDMP device. If you recover data to a SmartLock directory on the cluster, the metadata persists on the cluster.
However, if the directory that you recover data to is not a SmartLock directory, the metadata is lost. You can recover data to a
SmartLock directory only if the directory is empty.

File retention with SmartLock 319

For information about the limitations of replicating and failing back SmartLock directories with SyncIQ, see SmartLock
replication limitations.

SmartLock license functionality

You must activate a SmartLock license on a PowerScale cluster before you can create SmartLock directories and commit files to
a WORM state.
If a SmartLock license becomes inactive, you will not be able to create new SmartLock directories on the cluster, modify
SmartLock directory configuration settings, or delete files committed to a WORM state in enterprise directories before their
expiration dates. However, you can still commit files within existing SmartLock directories to a WORM state.
If a SmartLock license becomes inactive on a cluster that is running in SmartLock compliance mode, root access to the cluster is
not restored.

SmartLock considerations
● If a file is owned exclusively by the root user, and the file exists on a PowerScale cluster that is in SmartLock compliance
mode, the file will be inaccessible: the root user account is disabled in compliance mode. For example, if a file is assigned
root ownership on a cluster that has not been configured in compliance mode, and then the file is replicated to a cluster
in compliance mode, the file becomes inaccessible. This can also occur if a root-owned file is restored onto a compliance
cluster from a backup.
● It is recommended that you create files outside of SmartLock directories and then transfer them into a SmartLock directory
after you are finished working with the files. If you are uploading files to a cluster, it is recommended that you upload the
files to a non-SmartLock directory, and then later transfer the files to a SmartLock directory. If a file is committed to a
WORM state while the file is being uploaded, the file will become trapped in an inconsistent state.
● Files can be committed to a WORM state while they are still open. If you specify an autocommit time period for a directory,
the autocommit time period is calculated according to the length of time since the file was last modified, not when the file
was closed. If you delay writing to an open file for more than the autocommit time period, the file is automatically committed
to a WORM state, and you will not be able to write to the file.
● In a Microsoft Windows environment, if you commit a file to a WORM state, you can no longer modify the hidden or archive
attributes of the file. Any attempt to modify the hidden or archive attributes of a WORM committed file generates an error.
This can prevent third-party applications from modifying the hidden or archive attributes.
● You cannot rename a SmartLock compliance directory. You can rename a SmartLock enterprise directory only if it is empty.
● You can only rename files in SmartLock compliance or enterprise directories if the files are uncommitted.
● You cannot move:
○ SmartLock directories within a WORM domain
○ SmartLock directories in a WORM domain into a directory in a non-WORM domain.
○ directories in a non-WORM domain into a SmartLock directory in a WORM domain.

Set the compliance clock

Before you can create SmartLock compliance directories, you must set the compliance clock.
Setting the compliance clock configures the clock to the same time as the PowerScale cluster system clock. Before you set the
compliance clock, ensure that the system clock is set to the correct time. If the compliance clock later becomes unsynchronized
with the system clock, the compliance clock will slowly correct itself to match the system clock. The compliance clock corrects
itself at a rate of approximately one week per year.
1. Click File System > SmartLock > WORM.
2. Click Start Compliance Clock.

View the compliance clock

You can view the current time of the compliance clock.
1. Click File System > SmartLock > WORM.
2. In the Compliance Clock area, view the compliance clock.

320 File retention with SmartLock

Creating a SmartLock directory
You can create a SmartLock directory and configure settings that control how long files are retained in a WORM state and
when files are automatically committed to a WORM state. You cannot move or rename a directory that contains a SmartLock
directory.

Retention periods
A retention period is the length of time that a file remains in a WORM state before being released from a WORM state. You can
configure SmartLock directory settings that enforce default, maximum, and minimum retention periods for the directory.
If you manually commit a file, you can optionally specify the date that the file is released from a WORM state. You can configure
a minimum and a maximum retention period for a SmartLock directory to prevent files from being retained for too long or too
short a time period. It is recommended that you specify a minimum retention period for all SmartLock directories.
For example, assume that you have a SmartLock directory with a minimum retention period of two days. At 1:00 PM on Monday,
you commit a file to a WORM state, and specify the file to be released from a WORM state on Tuesday at 3:00 PM. The file will
be released from a WORM state two days later on Wednesday at 1:00 PM, because releasing the file earlier would violate the
minimum retention period.
You can also configure a default retention period that is assigned when you commit a file without specifying a date to release
the file from a WORM state.

Autocommit time periods

You can configure an autocommit time period for SmartLock directories. An autocommit time period causes files that have been
in a SmartLock directory for a period of time without being modified to be automatically committed to a WORM state.
If you modify the autocommit time period of a SmartLock directory that contains uncommitted files, the new autocommit time
period is immediately applied to the files that existed before the modification. For example, consider a SmartLock directory
with an autocommit time period of 2 hours. If you modify a file in the SmartLock directory at 1:00 PM, and you decrease the
autocommit time period to 1 hour at 2:15 PM, the file is instantly committed to a WORM state.
If a file is manually committed to a WORM state, the read-write permissions of the file are modified. However, if a file is
automatically committed to a WORM state, the read-write permissions of the file are not modified.

Create an enterprise directory for a non-empty directory

You can make a non-empty directory into a SmartLock enterprise directory. This procedure is available only through the
command-line interface (CLI).
Before creating a SmartLock directory, be aware of the following conditions and requirements:
● You cannot create a SmartLock directory as a subdirectory of an existing SmartLock directory.
● Hard links cannot cross SmartLock directory boundaries.
● Creating a SmartLock directory causes a corresponding SmartLock domain to be created for that directory.
Run the isi job jobs start command.
The following command creates a SmartLock enterprise domain for /ifs/data/smartlock:

isi job jobs start DomainMark --root /ifs/data/smartlock --dm-type Worm

Create a SmartLock directory

You can create a SmartLock directory and commit files in that directory to a WORM state.
Before creating a SmartLock directory, be aware of the following conditions and requirements:
● You cannot create a SmartLock directory as a subdirectory of an existing SmartLock directory.
● Hard links cannot cross SmartLock directory boundaries.

File retention with SmartLock 321

● Creating a SmartLock directory causes a corresponding SmartLock domain to be created for that directory.
1. Click File System > SmartLock > WORM.
2. Click Create Domain.
3. From the Type list, specify whether the directory is an enterprise directory or a compliance directory.
Compliance directories enable you to protect your data in compliance with the regulations defined by U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission rule 17a-4. Enterprise directories enable you to protect your data without complying with those
restrictions.
This option is available only if the cluster is in SmartLock compliance mode. If the cluster is not in compliance mode, all
SmartLock directories are enterprise directories.

4. From the Privileged Delete list, specify whether to enabled the root user to delete files that are currently committed to a
WORM state.
NOTE: This functionality is available only for SmartLock enterprise directories.

5. In the Path field, type the full path of the directory you want to make into a SmartLock directory.
The specified path must belong to an empty directory on the cluster.
6. Optional: To specify a default retention period for the directory, click Apply a default retention span and then specify a
time period.
The default retention period will be assigned if you commit a file to a WORM state without specifying a day to release the file
from the WORM state.
7. Optional: To specify a minimum retention period for the directory, click Apply a minimum retention span and then specify
a time period.
The minimum retention period ensures that files are retained in a WORM state for at least the specified period of time.
8. Optional: To specify a maximum retention period for the directory, click Apply a maximum retention span and then specify
a time period.
The maximum retention period ensures that files are not retained in a WORM state for more than the specified period of
time.
9. Click Create Domain.
10. Click Create.

Managing SmartLock directories

You can modify SmartLock directory settings, including the default, minimum, maximum retention period and the autocommit
time period.
A SmartLock enterprise directory can be renamed only if the directory is empty. A SmartLock compliance directory cannot be
renamed.

Modify a SmartLock directory

You can modify the SmartLock configuration settings for a SmartLock directory.
1. Click File System > SmartLock > WORM.
2. In the Write Once Read many (WORM) Domains table, in the row of a SmartLock directory, click View / Edit.
3. Click Edit Domain.
4. Modify settings and then click Save Changes.

Delete a SmartLock directory

You can delete a SmartLock compliance mode directory and its corresponding compliance mode WORM domain (if needed)
using the CLI, but not the Web UI.
In order to do this, you must set the pending delete flag on the domain via the isi worm domain modify <domain>
--set-pending-delete CLI command. You cannot set the pending delete flag on an enterprise mode WORM domain. For
more information, see the OneFS CLI Administration Guide.

322 File retention with SmartLock

View SmartLock directory settings
You can view settings for SmartLock directory.
1. Click File System > SmartLock > WORM.
2. In the Write Once Read many (WORM) Domains table, in the row of a SmartLock directory, click View / Edit.
3. In the View WORM Domain Details dialog box, view SmartLock directory settings.

SmartLock directory configuration settings

You can configure SmartLock directory settings that determine when files are committed to and how long files are retained in a
WORM state.

Path The path of the directory.

Root Logical The LIN of the directory.

Inode (LIN)
ID The numerical ID of the corresponding SmartLock domain.
Type The type of SmartLock directory.
Enterprise
Enterprise directories enable you to protect your data without restricting your
cluster to comply with regulations defined by U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission rule 17a-4
Compliance
Compliance directories enable you to protect your data in compliance with the
regulations defined by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule 17a-4.

Privileged Delete Indicates whether files committed to a WORM state in the directory can be deleted through the
privileged delete functionality. To access the privilege delete functionality, you must either be assigned
the ISI_PRIV_IFS_WORM_DELETE privilege and own the file you are deleting. You can also access the
privilege delete functionality for any file if you are logged in through the root or compadmin user account.

on Files committed to a WORM state can be deleted through the isi worm files
delete command.
off Files committed to a WORM state cannot be deleted, even through the isi worm
files delete command.
disabled Files committed to a WORM state cannot be deleted, even through the isi worm
files delete command. After this setting is applied, it cannot be modified.

Apply a default The default retention period for the directory. If a user does not specify a date to release a file from a
retention span WORM state, the default retention period is assigned.
Enforce a The minimum retention period for the directory. Files are retained in a WORM state for at least the
minimum specified amount of time, even if a user specifies an expiration date that results in a shorter retention
retention time period.
span
Enforce a The maximum retention period for the directory. Files cannot be retained in a WORM state for more than
maximum the specified amount of time, even if a user specifies an expiration date that results in a longer retention
retention time period.
span
Automatically The autocommit time period for the directory. After a file exists in this SmartLock directory without being
commit files modified for the specified time period, the file is automatically committed to a WORM state.
after a specific
period of time
Override The override retention date for the directory. Files committed to a WORM state are not released from a
retention periods WORM state until after the specified date, regardless of the maximum retention period for the directory
and protect all or whether a user specifies an earlier date to release a file from a WORM state.

File retention with SmartLock 323

files until a
specific date

Managing files in SmartLock directories

You can commit files in SmartLock directories to a WORM state by removing the read-write privileges of the file. You can also
set a specific date at which the retention period of the file expires. Once a file is committed to a WORM state, you can increase
the retention period of the file, but you cannot decrease the retention period of the file. You cannot move a file that has been
committed to a WORM state, even after the retention period for the file has expired.
The retention period expiration date is set by modifying the access time of a file. In a UNIX command line, the access time
can be modified through the touch command. Although there is no method of modifying the access time through Windows
Explorer, you can modify the access time through Windows Powershell. Accessing a file does not set the retention period
expiration date.
If you run the touch command on a file in a SmartLock directory without specifying a date on which to release the file from a
SmartLock state, and you commit the file, the retention period is automatically set to the default retention period specified for
the SmartLock directory. If you have not specified a default retention period for the SmartLock directory, the file is assigned a
retention period of zero seconds. It is recommended that you specify a minimum retention period for all SmartLock directories.

Set a retention period through a UNIX command line

You can specify when a file will be released from a WORM state through a UNIX command line.
1. Open a connection to any node in the PowerScale cluster through a UNIX command line and log in.
2. Set the retention period by modifying the access time of the file through the touch command.
The following command sets an expiration date of June 1, 2025 for /ifs/data/test.txt:

touch -at 202506010000 /ifs/data/test.txt

Other touch command input formats are also allowed to modify the access time of files. For example, the command:

touch -a MMDDhhmm[yy] [file]

can modify the access time in some versions of FreeBSD.

Other commands that modify the access time have the same effect of modifying the retention period. For example, the
command:

cp -p <source> <destination>

copies the contents of source to destination, and then updates the attributes of destination to match the attributes of
source, including setting the same access time.

Set a retention period through Windows Powershell

You can specify when a file will be released from a WORM state through Microsoft Windows Powershell.
1. Open the Windows PowerShell command prompt.
2. Optional: Establish a connection to the PowerScale cluster by running the net use command.
The following command establishes a connection to the /ifs directory on cluster.ip.address.com:

net use "\\cluster.ip.address.com\ifs" /user:root password

3. Specify the name of the file you want to set a retention period for by creating an object.
The file must exist in a SmartLock directory.

The following command creates an object for /smartlock/file.txt:

$file = Get-Item "\\cluster.ip.address.com\ifs\smartlock\file.txt"

324 File retention with SmartLock

4. Specify the retention period by setting the last access time for the file.
The following command sets an expiration date of July 1, 2015 at 1:00 PM:

$file.LastAccessTime = Get-Date "2015/7/1 1:00 pm"

Commit a file to a WORM state through a UNIX command line

You can commit a file to a WORM state through a UNIX command line.
To commit a file to a WORM state, you must remove all write privileges from the file. If a file is already set to a read-only state,
you must first add write privileges to the file, and then return the file to a read-only state.
1. Open a connection to the PowerScale cluster through a UNIX command line interface and log in.
2. Remove write privileges from a file by running the chmod command.
The following command removes write privileges of /ifs/data/smartlock/file.txt:

chmod ugo-w /ifs/data/smartlock/file.txt

Commit a file to a WORM state through Windows Explorer

You can commit a file to a WORM state through Microsoft Windows Explorer. This procedure describes how to commit a file
through Windows 7.
To commit a file to a WORM state, you must apply the read-only setting. If a file is already set to a read-only state, you must
first remove the file from a read-only state and then return it to a read-only state.
1. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the file you want to commit to a WORM state.
2. Right-click the folder and then click Properties.
3. In the Properties window, click the General tab.
4. Select the Read-only check box, and then click OK.

Override the retention period for all files in a SmartLock directory

You can override the retention period for files in a SmartLock directory. All files committed to a WORM state within the
directory will remain in a WORM state until after the specified day.
If files are committed to a WORM state after the retention period is overridden, the override date functions as a minimum
retention date. All files committed to a WORM state do not expire until at least the given day, regardless of user specifications.
1. Click File System > SmartLock > WORM.
2. In the Write Once Read many (WORM) Domains table, in the row of a SmartLock directory, click View / Edit.
3. Click Edit Domain.
4. Click Override retention periods and protect all files until a specific date and then specify a date.
5. Click Save Changes.

Delete a file committed to a WORM state

You can delete a WORM committed file in an enterprise WORM domain before the expiration date through the privileged delete
functionality. This procedure is available only through the CLI.
● Privileged delete functionality must not be permanently disabled for the SmartLock directory that contains the file.
● You must either be the owner of the file and have the ISI_PRIV_IFS_WORM_DELETE and ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS
privileges, or be logged in through the root user account.
1. Open a connection to the PowerScale cluster through a UNIX command line and log in.
2. If privileged delete functionality was disabled for the SmartLock directory, modify the directory by running the isi worm
domains modify command with the --privileged-delete option.

File retention with SmartLock 325

 The following command enables privileged delete for /ifs/data/SmartLock/directory1:

isi worm domains modify /ifs/data/SmartLock/directory1 \

--privileged-delete true

3. Delete the WORM committed file by running the isi worm files delete command.
The following command deletes /ifs/data/SmartLock/directory1/file:

isi worm files delete /ifs/data/SmartLock/directory1/file

The system displays output similar to the following:

Are you sure? (yes, [no]):

4. Type yes and then press ENTER.

View WORM status of a file

You can view the WORM status of an individual file. This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a connection to the PowerScale cluster through a UNIX command line.
2. View the WORM status of a file by running the isi worm files view command.
For example, the following command displays the WORM status of a file:

isi worm files view /ifs/data/SmartLock/directory1/file

The system displays output similar to the following:

WORM Domains
ID Root Path
------------------------------------
65539 /ifs/data/SmartLock/directory1

WORM State: COMMITTED

Expires: 2015-06-01T00:00:00

326 File retention with SmartLock

 22
Protection domains
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Protection domains overview
• Protection domain considerations
• Create a protection domain
• Delete a protection domain

Protection domains overview

Protection domains are markers that prevent modifications to files and directories. If a domain is applied to a directory, the
domain is also applied to all of the files and subdirectories under the directory. You can specify domains manually; however,
OneFS usually creates domains automatically.

Protection domain considerations

You can manually create protection domains before they are required by OneFS to perform certain actions. However, manually
creating protection domains can limit your ability to interact with the data marked by the domain.
● Copying a large number of files into a protection domain might take a very long time because each file must be marked
individually as belonging to the protection domain.
● You cannot move directories in or out of protection domains. However, you can move a directory contained in a protection
domain to another location within the same protection domain.
● Creating a protection domain for a directory that contains a large number of files will take more time than creating a
protection domain for a directory with fewer files. Because of this, it is recommended that you create protection domains for
directories while the directories are empty, and then add files to the directory.
● If a domain is currently preventing the modification or deletion of a file, you cannot create a protection domain for a
directory that contains that file. For example, if /ifs/data/smartlock/file.txt is set to a WORM state by a
SmartLock domain, you cannot create a SnapRevert domain for /ifs/data/.

NOTE: If you use SyncIQ to create a replication policy for a SmartLock compliance directory, the SyncIQ and SmartLock
compliance domains must be configured at the same root directory level. A SmartLock compliance domain cannot be nested
inside a SyncIQ domain.

Create a protection domain

You can create SyncIQ domains or SnapRevert domains to facilitate snapshot revert and failover operations. You cannot create
a SmartLock domain. OneFS automatically creates a SmartLock domain when you create a SmartLock directory.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types area, in the DomainMark row, from the Actions column, select Start Job.
3. In the Domain Root Path field, type the path of the directory you want to create a protection domain for.
4. From the Type of domain list, specify the type of domain you want to create.
5. Ensure that the Delete this domain check box is cleared.
6. Click Start Job.

Protection domains 327

Related concepts
Protection domains overview

Delete a protection domain

You can delete SyncIQ domains or SnapRevert domains if you want to move directories out of the domain. You cannot delete a
SmartLock domain. OneFS automatically deletes a SmartLock domain when you delete a SmartLock directory.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types area, in the DomainMark row, from the Actions column, select Start Job.
3. In the Domain Root Path field, type the path of the directory you want to delete a protection domain for.
4. From the Type of domain list, specify the type of domain you want to delete.
5. Select Delete this domain.
6. Click Start Job.

Related concepts
Protection domains overview

328 Protection domains

 23
Data-at-rest-encryption
Topics:
• Data-at-rest encryption overview
• Self-encrypting drives
• Data security on self-encrypting drives
• Data migrations and upgrades to a cluster with self-encrypting drives
• Enabling external key management
• Migrate nodes and SEDs to external key management
• Chassis and drive states
• Smartfailed drive REPLACE state
• Smartfailed drive ERASE state

Data-at-rest encryption overview

You can enhance data security on a cluster that contains only self-encrypting-drive nodes, providing data-at-rest encryption
(DARE) protection.
For more information about data-at-rest encryption, see the OneFS Data-at-Rest Encryption whitepaper.

Self-encrypting drives
Self-encrypting drives store data on a cluster that is specially designed for data-at-rest encryption.
Data-at-rest encryption on self-encrypting drives occurs when data that is stored on a device is encrypted to prevent
unauthorized data access. All data that is written to the storage device is encrypted when it is stored, and all data that is
read from the storage device is decrypted when it is read. The stored data is encrypted with a 256-bit data AES encryption key
and decrypted in the same manner. OneFS controls data access by combining the drive authentication key with data-encryption
keys.

NOTE: All nodes in a cluster must be of the self-encrypting drive type. Mixed nodes are not supported.

Data security on self-encrypting drives

Self-encrypting drives guarantee data security with the use of encryption keys.
Data on self-encrypting drives is protected from unauthorized access by authenticating with encryption keys. Encryption keys
can be hosted on the local drive or on an external key management server. Successful authentication with encryption keys
unlocks the drive for data access. For specific information about supported external key management servers, refer to the
PowerScale Supportability and Compatibility Guide.
The data on self-encrypting drives is rendered inaccessible in the following conditions:
● When a self-encrypting drive is smartfailed, drive authentication keys are deleted, making the drive unreadable. When you
smartfail and then remove a drive, it is cryptographically erased.
NOTE: Smartfailing a drive is the preferred method for removing a self-encrypting drive.
● When a self-encrypting drive loses power, the drive locks to prevent unauthorized access. When power is restored, data is
again accessible when the appropriate drive authentication key is provided.
● When a cluster using external key management loses network connection to the external key management server, the drives
are locked until the network connection is restored.

Data-at-rest-encryption 329
Data migrations and upgrades to a cluster with self-
encrypting drives
You can have data from your existing cluster migrated or upgraded to a cluster of nodes made up of self-encrypting drives
(SEDs). As a result, all migrated and future data on the new cluster are encrypted.
Upgrading from a cluster with SEDs using on-disk keys to a cluster with SEDs using an external key management server retains
the on-disk keys. After the upgrade, you must migrate your drives to the external key management server.
NOTE: Data migration and upgrades to a cluster with SEDs must be performed by PowerScale Professional Services. For
more information, contact your Dell Technologies representative.

Enabling external key management

You can enable external key management for self-encrypting drives (SED).
A OneFS cluster of nodes made up of self-encrypting drives (SEDs)
A KMIP 1.2 compatible external key management server
Certificates using X.509 PKI for TLS mutual authentication
Network connectivity between the OneFS cluster and the external key management server
To enable external key management, follow these steps:
1. Click Access > Key Management.
2. Click the Key Server tab.
3. Click the Enable Key Management checkbox.
4. Enter the Server Host address.
5. Enter the Server Port.
6. Enter the Server Certificate.
7. Enter the Client Certificate.
8. Enter the Client Certificate Password.
9. Click Submit.
OneFS confirms the connectivity between the OneFS server and the external key management server. Once confirmed, the
external key management server is ready for SEDs to be migrated.

Migrate nodes and SEDs to external key management

Once the external key management server is enabled, you can migrate the key authentication for each of your OneFS nodes.
External key management enabled.
To migrate the key authentication for your nodes and SEDs, follow these steps:
1. Click Access > Key Management.
2. Click the Keys tab.
Here, you can view the key IDs, nodes, status, and location.
3. Click Migrate All to migrate key authentication for all nodes.
4. Click Migrate to begin the process.
OneFS begins migrating the key authentication for each node. You can track migration progress and completion on the Keys
tab.

330 Data-at-rest-encryption
Chassis and drive states
You can view chassis and drive state details.
In a cluster, the combination of nodes in different degraded states determines whether read requests, write requests, or both
work. A cluster can lose write quorum but keep read quorum. OneFS provides details about the status of chassis and drives in
your cluster. The following table describes all the possible states that you may encounter in your cluster.

State Description Interface Error state

HEALTHY All drives in the node are functioning correctly. Command-line
interface, web
administration interface
L3 A solid state drive (SSD) was deployed as level 3 Command-line interface
(L3) cache to increase the size of cache memory
and improve throughput speeds.
SMARTFAIL or The drive is in the process of being removed Command-line
Smartfail or safely from the file system, either because of an interface, web
restripe in I/O error or by user request. Nodes or drives in administration interface
progress a smartfail or read-only state affect only write
quorum.
NOT AVAILABLE A drive is unavailable for a variety of reasons. Command-line X
You can click the bay to view detailed information interface, web
about this condition. administration interface
NOTE: In the web administration interface,
this state includes the ERASE and
SED_ERROR command-line interface states.

SUSPENDED This state indicates that drive activity is Command-line

temporarily suspended and the drive is not in use. interface, web
The state is manually initiated and does not occur administration interface
during normal cluster activity.
NOT IN USE A node in an offline state affects both read and Command-line
write quorum. interface, web
administration interface
REPLACE The drive was smartfailed successfully and is Command-line interface
ready to be replaced. only
STALLED The drive is stalled and undergoing stall Command-line interface
evaluation. Stall evaluation is the process of only
checking drives that are slow or having other
issues. Depending on the outcome of the
evaluation, the drive may return to service or be
smartfailed. This is a transient state.
NEW The drive is new and blank. This is the state Command-line interface
that a drive is in when you run the isi dev only
command with the -a add option.
USED The drive was added and contained a Command-line interface
PowerScaleGUID but the drive is not from this only
node. This drive likely will be formatted into the
cluster.
PREPARING The drive is undergoing a format operation. Command-line interface
The drive state changes to HEALTHY when the only
format is successful.
EMPTY No drive is in this bay. Command-line interface
only

Data-at-rest-encryption 331
State Description Interface Error state
WRONG_TYPE The drive type is wrong for this node. For Command-line interface
example, a non-SED drive in a SED node, SAS only
instead of the expected SATA drive type.
BOOT_DRIVE Unique to the A100 drive, which has boot drives Command-line interface
in its bays. only
SED_ERROR The drive cannot be acknowledged by the OneFS Command-line X
system. interface, web
NOTE: In the web administration interface, administration interface
this state is included in Not available.

ERASE The drive is ready for removal but needs your Command-line interface
attention because the data has not been erased. only
You can erase the drive manually to guarantee
that data is removed.
NOTE: In the web administration interface,
this state is included in Not available.

INSECURE Data on the self-encrypted drive is accessible Command-line interface X

by unauthorized personnel. Self-encrypting drives only
should never be used for non-encrypted data
purposes.
NOTE: In the web administration interface,
this state is labeled Unencrypted SED.

UNENCRYPTED Data on the self-encrypted drive is accessible Web administration X

by unauthorized personnel. Self-encrypting drives interface only
should never be used for non-encrypted data
purposes.
NOTE: In the command-line interface, this
state is labeled INSECURE.

Smartfailed drive REPLACE state

You can see different drive states during the smartfail process.
If you run the isi dev list command while the drive in bay 1 is being smartfailed, the system displays output similar to the
following example:

Node 1, [ATTN]
Bay 1 Lnum 11 [SMARTFAIL] SN:Z296M8HK 000093172YE04 /dev/da1
Bay 2 Lnum 10 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8N5 00009330EYE03 /dev/da2
Bay 3 Lnum 9 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296LBP4 00009330EYE03 /dev/da3
Bay 4 Lnum 8 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296LCJW 00009327BYE03 /dev/da4
Bay 5 Lnum 7 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8XB 00009330KYE03 /dev/da5
Bay 6 Lnum 6 [HEALTHY] SN:Z295LXT7 000093172YE03 /dev/da6
Bay 7 Lnum 5 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8ZF 00009330KYE03 /dev/da7
Bay 8 Lnum 4 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8SD 00009330EYE03 /dev/da8
Bay 9 Lnum 3 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8QA 00009330EYE03 /dev/da9
Bay 10 Lnum 2 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8Q7 00009330EYE03 /dev/da10
Bay 11 Lnum 1 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8SP 00009330EYE04 /dev/da11
Bay 12 Lnum 0 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8QZ 00009330JYE03 /dev/da12

If you run the isi dev list command after the smartfail completes successfully, the system displays output similar to the
following example, showing the drive state as REPLACE:

Node 1, [ATTN]
Bay 1 Lnum 11 [REPLACE] SN:Z296M8HK 000093172YE04 /dev/da1
Bay 2 Lnum 10 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8N5 00009330EYE03 /dev/da2
Bay 3 Lnum 9 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296LBP4 00009330EYE03 /dev/da3
Bay 4 Lnum 8 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296LCJW 00009327BYE03 /dev/da4

332 Data-at-rest-encryption
 Bay 5 Lnum 7 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8XB 00009330KYE03 /dev/da5
Bay 6 Lnum 6 [HEALTHY] SN:Z295LXT7 000093172YE03 /dev/da6
Bay 7 Lnum 5 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8ZF 00009330KYE03 /dev/da7
Bay 8 Lnum 4 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8SD 00009330EYE03 /dev/da8
Bay 9 Lnum 3 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8QA 00009330EYE03 /dev/da9
Bay 10 Lnum 2 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8Q7 00009330EYE03 /dev/da10
Bay 11 Lnum 1 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8SP 00009330EYE04 /dev/da11
Bay 12 Lnum 0 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8QZ 00009330JYE03 /dev/da12

If you run the isi dev list command while the drive in bay 3 is being smartfailed, the system displays output similar to the
following example:

Node 1, [ATTN]
Bay 1 Lnum 11 [REPLACE] SN:Z296M8HK 000093172YE04 /dev/da1
Bay 2 Lnum 10 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8N5 00009330EYE03 /dev/da2
Bay 3 Lnum 9 [SMARTFAIL] SN:Z296LBP4 00009330EYE03 N/A
Bay 4 Lnum 8 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296LCJW 00009327BYE03 /dev/da4
Bay 5 Lnum 7 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8XB 00009330KYE03 /dev/da5
Bay 6 Lnum 6 [HEALTHY] SN:Z295LXT7 000093172YE03 /dev/da6
Bay 7 Lnum 5 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8ZF 00009330KYE03 /dev/da7
Bay 8 Lnum 4 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8SD 00009330EYE03 /dev/da8
Bay 9 Lnum 3 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8QA 00009330EYE03 /dev/da9
Bay 10 Lnum 2 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8Q7 00009330EYE03 /dev/da10
Bay 11 Lnum 1 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8SP 00009330EYE04 /dev/da11
Bay 12 Lnum 0 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8QZ 00009330JYE03 /dev/da12

Smartfailed drive ERASE state

At the end of a smartfail process, OneFS attempts to delete the authentication key on a drive if it is unable to reset the key.
NOTE:
● To securely delete the authentication key on a single drive, smartfail the individual drive.
● To securely delete the authentication key on a single node, smartfail the node.
● To securely delete the authentication keys on an entire cluster, smartfail each node and run the isi_reformat_node
command on the last node.
Upon running the isi dev list command, the system displays output similar to the following example, showing the drive
state as ERASE:

Node 1, [ATTN]
Bay 1 Lnum 11 [REPLACE] SN:Z296M8HK 000093172YE04 /dev/da1
Bay 2 Lnum 10 [HEALTHY] SN:Z296M8N5 00009330EYE03 /dev/da2
Bay 3 Lnum 9 [ERASE] SN:Z296LBP4 00009330EYE03 /dev/da3

Drives showing the ERASE state can be safely retired, reused, or returned.
Any further access to a drive showing the ERASE state requires the authentication key of the drive to be set to its default
manufactured security ID (MSID). This action erases the data encryption key (DEK) on the drive and renders any existing data
on the drive permanently unreadable.

Data-at-rest-encryption 333
 24
S3 Support
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• S3
• Server Configuration
• Bucket handling
• Object handling
• Authentication
• Access key management

S3
OneFS supports the Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) protocol for reading data from and writing data to
the OneFS platform.
The S3-on-OneFS technology enables the usage of Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) protocol to store
data in the form of objects on top of the OneFS file system storage. The data resides under a single namespace. The AWS
S3 protocol becomes a primary resident of the OneFS protocol stack, along with NFS, SMB, and HDFS. The technology allows
multiprotocol access to objects and files.
The S3 protocol supports bucket and object creation, retrieving, updating, and deletion. Object retrievals and updates are
atomic. Bucket properties can be updated. Objects are accessible using NFS and SMB as normal files, providing cross-protocol
support.
To use S3, administrators generate access IDs and secret keys to authenticated users for access.
Etag consistency is now implemented for S3 on OneFS protocol.

S3 concepts
This section describes some of the key concepts related to the S3 protocol.
Buckets: A bucket is a container for objects stored in S3. Every object is contained in a bucket. Buckets organize the S3
namespace at the highest level, identify the account responsible for storage and data transfer charges, and play a role in access
control.
Objects: Objects are the fundamental entities stored in S3. An object is uniquely identified within a bucket by a key name and
version ID. Objects consist of object data, metadata and others. Key is the object name, value is the data portion that is not
visible by users, and metadata is the data about the data and is a set of name-value pairs that describe the object for example,
content-type, size, last modified. Custom metadata can also be specified at the time the object is stored.
Keys: A key is the unique identifier for an object within a bucket. Every object in a bucket has a key and a value.
An Account ID and a secret key are used to authenticate a user. The Account ID and secret key are created by the Administrator
and mapped to users (such as UNIX, AD, LDAP, and so on).

Server Configuration
The S3 settings are defined in the registry.
The server configuration settings for the S3 protocol are separated into global service configuration and per-zone configuration.

334 S3 Support
Global S3 settings
You can enable and disable the S3 service on the OneFS cluster, set ports for HTTP and HTTPS for the S3 protocol across the
cluster.
You can view or modify the global S3 settings for service related parameters from the Global settings page.

Enable S3 service
You can enable the S3 service.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Global settings tab.
The Global settings page appears.
3. Under the View/Edit Settings area, select the Enable S3 service check box.
The S3 service is enabled.

Disable S3 service
You can disable the S3 service.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Global settings tab.
The Global settings page appears.
3. Under the View/Edit Settings area, clear the Enable S3 service check box.
The S3 service is disabled.

View ports
You can view already configured HTTPS and HTTP ports.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Global settings tab.
The Global settings page appears.
3. Under the View/Edit Settings area, view the details. The default values for the ports are:
● HTTPS: 9021
● HTTP: 9020
If the Enable S3 HTTP check box is clear, only S3 HTTPS is supported.

Modify ports
You can modify already configured HTTPS and HTTP ports.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Global settings tab.
The Global settings page appears.
3. Under the View/Edit Settings area, select the Enable S3 HTTP check box to enable S3 HTTP support.
If the Enable S3 HTTP is clear, only S3 HTTPS is supported.
4. Modify the port details. The default values for the ports are:
● HTTPS: 9021
● HTTP: 9020
You can modify the value for both the ports. Click the arrows inside the box or enter a value in the box.
Click Revert changes to go back to previous settings. Revert changes is enabled only if any changes are made.
5. Click Save changes.
Save changes is enabled only if you have modified the settings.

S3 Support 335
 The changes are saved, and the following message appears.

Updated S3 global settings.

S3 global settings has been updated successfully.

S3 zone settings
Access zones provide default locations for creating buckets.
You can view or modify specific S3 settings of an access zone from the Zone settings page.
If you are creating a bucket, and a zone ID or name is not provided, the creation of the bucket defaults to the System zone.

View zone settings

View S3 zone-specific settings for setting root-path for buckets in zone.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Zone settings tab.
3. View the following fields:
● Current access zone: View the access zone. By default System zone is selected.
● Bucket root path: View the file path where the bucket is saved.
● Base domain: View the base domain. The default value is empty.
NOTE: A base domain is used as part of the object address where the virtual host style addressing is used. As a
result of setting the base domain, OneFS can understand which part of the address points out to the bucket.
● Use MD5 for Etag on upload: The Use MD5 for Etag on upload check box is not selected by default.
● Validate given Content-MD5: The Validate given Content-MD5 check box is not selected by default.

Modify zone settings

Modify S3 zone-specific settings for setting root-path for buckets in zone.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Zone settings tab.
3. In the Current access zone list, click the access zone whose settings you modify. By default System zone is selected.
The details that are related to the bucket root path and base domain are displayed.
4. Modify the following fields:
● Bucket root path: You can modify the bucket root path for any new bucket that is created.
a. Click Browse. The Select a path to a file dialog box appears.
b. Select the path on /ifs.
c. Click Select. The updated bucket root path appears in the Bucket root path box.
● Base domain: You can modify the base domain.
NOTE: A base domain is used as part of the object address where the virtual host style addressing is used. As
a result of setting the base domain, OneFS can understand which part of the address points out to the bucket.
For example, if you are using an addressing scheme that includes the bucket, you can have addresses of the form:
mybucket.mydomain.com. You need to tell OneFS that mydomain.com is the base domain so that it knows that
mybucket is the bucket.
● Use MD5 for Etag on upload: Select the check box to use MD5 for Etag or clear the check box if it is already selected.
● Validate given Content-MD5: Select the check box to validate the given Content-MD5 or clear the check box if it is
already selected.
Click Revert changes to go back to previous settings. Revert changes is enabled only if any modifications are made.
5. Click Save Changes.
Save changes is enabled only if you have modified the settings.
The changes are saved, and the following message appears.

Updated S3 zone settings.

S3 zone settings has been updated successfully.

336 S3 Support
Certificates
Server certificates are a requirement for the server to set up a TLS handshake.
On a OneFS cluster, the certificate manager manages all the certificates. The certificate manager is designed to provide a
generic programmatic way for accessing and configuring certificates on the cluster.
The HTTPS certificates used by S3 are handled by the isi certificate manager. The Apache instance uses the same store.

Bucket handling
Buckets are the containers for objects. You can have one or more buckets. For each bucket, you can control access to it (who
can create, delete, and list objects in the bucket).
Buckets are a similar concept to exports in NFS and shares in SMB. A major difference between buckets and NFS export is that
any user with valid credentials can create a bucket on the server, and the bucket is owned by that user.
OneFS now supports these bucket and account operations:
● PUT bucket
● GET bucket (list objects in a bucket)
● GET bucket location
● DELETE bucket
● GET Bucket acl
● PUT Bucket acl
● HEAD Bucket
● List Multipart Uploads
● GET Service

Managing buckets
You can access the S3 bucket management feature from OneFS web administration interface.

You can now view, create, modify, and delete buckets.

List buckets
View a list of buckets. You can also sort and filter the list.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
The Buckets page appears with the list of buckets.
2. View the list of buckets in a tabular format. The four columns are: name, path, owner, and actions.
● You can filter the buckets by zone: In the Current access zone list, select the access zone. The buckets for the given
zone are displayed. The default selected value is System zone.
● You can filter the buckets by owner: In the Owner box, enter the name of the owner and click Apply. The buckets for
the given owner are displayed.
3. Click the arrows on the table header of the columns to sort the buckets based on name, path, and owner fields.
4. Click <<, <, and > to go to the first page, previous page, and next page respectively. Click Last to refresh and reload all the
buckets and go to page 1.

Create a bucket
You can create a bucket for a user.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
● In the Current access zone list, select the access zone where you want to create the bucket. The default selected
value is System zone.
2. On the Buckets page, click Create Bucket.
The Create a Bucket dialog box appears.

S3 Support 337
3. Enter the following information in the Create a Bucket dialog box:
● Name: Enter the name of the bucket. The name must be between 3 and 63 characters in length. Bucket name cannot
contain characters other than a-z, 0-9, and '-'. This is a mandatory field.
● Owner: Enter the name of the bucket owner. Click Select user to search for a user. Then, in the Search user dialog
box, enter the details in the User and Providers boxes and click Search. This is a mandatory field.
● Path: Enter the file path where you plan to store the bucket. Click Browse to select a path to a directory and then click
Select. Select the Create bucket path if it does not exist check box if a path does not exist. This is a mandatory field.
● Description: Enter a description for the bucket. This is an optional field.
● ACL: Click Add ACL . Then, click Select user and search for the user. In the Permissions list, select the permission for
your bucket. Whenever, you want to specify ACLs, you must select the user or grantee and permissions for that user or
grantee. This is an optional field.
4. Click Create Bucket.
The bucket is successfully created, and the following message appears:

S3 bucket has been created successfully.

Click Cancel to exit the Create a Bucket dialog box.

View bucket details

View the details of a bucket.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. On the Buckets page, you can see the list of buckets. Under the Actions column, click View/Edit next to the bucket
whose details want to view.
The View and Edit bucket dialog box appears.
3. View the following information in the View and Edit bucket dialog box:
● Name: View the name of the bucket.
● Owner: View the name of the bucket owner.
● Path: View the file path where the bucket is stored.
● Description: View the description for the bucket.
● ACL: View details related to the added access control list (ACL). You can view details related to the selected user and
the permission granted to the user (READ, WRITE, READ_ACP, WRITE_ACP, and FULL_CONTROL.)
Click Cancel to exit the View and Edit bucket dialog box.

Modify bucket details

Modify the details of an existing bucket.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. On the Buckets page, you can see the list of buckets. Under the Actions column, click View/Edit next to the bucket that
you want to modify.
The View and Edit bucket dialog box appears.
3. Modify the following information in the View and Edit bucket dialog box:
● Name: You cannot change the bucket name.
● Owner: You cannot change the bucket owner's name.
● Path: You cannot change the directory path of the bucket.
● Description: Modify the description for the bucket.
● ACL: In the User area, click Select user to search for a user. From the Permissions list, select the permission that you
want to grant to the selected user.
4. Click Save Changes.
The modifications are saved.
Click Cancel to exit the View and Edit bucket dialog box.

Delete a bucket
You can delete a bucket.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .

338 S3 Support
2. On the Buckets page, you can see the list of buckets. Under the Actions column, click Delete next to the bucket that you
want to delete.
The Confirm delete dialog box appears.
3. Click Delete. The bucket is deleted.
Click Cancel to exit the Confirm delete dialog box and return to the list of buckets.

Object handling
An object consists of a file and optionally any metadata that describes that file. To store an object in S3, you upload the file that
you want to store to a bucket. You can set permissions on the object and any metadata.
S3 stores data in the form of objects, which are key-value pairs. An object is identified using the key. The data is stored inside
the object as a value. In OneFS, you use files to represent objects. An object key points out to a path name and an object value
to the contents of the file.
An object can have associated metadata with size limits. There can be system metadata, which are generated for every object.
Also, there can be user metadata that applications create for selected objects.
Objects reside within buckets. The life cycle and access of an object depends on the policies and ACLs enforced on the bucket.
Also, each object can have its own ACLs.
An object key can have prefixes or delimiters, which are used to organize them efficiently.

Object key
The object key is the path of the file from the root of the bucket directory.
For OneFS the object key is treated as a file path from root. "/" is treated as the path for directories. The limitations on object
keys are listed below:
● Cannot use " / " (It is treated as a delimiter) .
● Cannot use ". " and ".." as a key or as a part of prefix.
● If snapshot is already present, .snapshot cannot be created.
● Maximum key length including prefix and delimiter is 1023 bytes.
● Key length or each prefix split by / is 255 bytes.
● Can use ASCII or UTF-8.
● Other OneFS data services may have a problem if path length as a file exceeds 1024 bytes.
● Cannot place object under the .isi_s3 directory.
● Cannot place file object if a directory with the same name already exists.

Object Metadata
An object can have two types of metadata, system metadata and user-defined metadata.
Both system and user-defined metadata are defined as a set of name-value pairs. In OneFS, system metadata gets stored as an
inode attribute and the user-defined metadata gets stored as an extended attribute of the file.

Multipart upload
The S3 protocol allows you to upload a large file as multiple parts rather than as a single request.
The client initiates a multipart upload with a POST request with the uploads the query parameter and the object key. On the
cluster, a unique userUploadId string is generated by concatenating the bucket ID and upload ID and returned to the client. The
pair of bucket ID and upload ID is also stored in a per-zone SBT. A directory, .s3_parts_userUploadID is created in the
target directory to store the parts. After getting created, the directory and kvstore entry persists until the multipart operation
is either completed or stopped. Parts are uploaded with a part number and stored in the temporary directory. A part has a
maximum size of 5 GB and the last part a minimum size of 5 MB. Complete multipart upload is handled by concatenating the
parts to a temporary file under the .isi_s3 directory. Once the concatenation succeeds, the temporary file is copied to the
target, the .s3_parts_userUploadID is deleted, and the SBT entry is removed.

S3 Support 339
Etag
S3 may use an MD5 checksum as an ETag. This value is specified in the HTTP header "Content-MD5."
The Etag consistency is implemented to S3 on OneFS protocol to calculate an MD5 hash for a single PUT object operation when
no Etag is provided. This feature provides compatibly with AWS S3 behavior and helps the S3 service to calculate and return the
MD5 hash for single object PUT operations when an Etag is not supplied by the client.
Two new configuration options, use-md5-for-etag and validate-content-md5 are added to control when the MD5
hash is calculated. The options are in the S3 zone settings and can be configured on a per-zone basis. By default, both options
are disabled and the MD5 hash is not calculated. If the validate-content-md5 is set to true, then the MD5 hash is
calculated provided the PUT object request has a Content-MD5 to check the content integrity. If use-md5-for-etag is set
to true, then the MD5 hash is calculated on request if no Content-MD5 is provided to store as the Etag . If both options are set
to true , the MD5 hash is always calculated.

PUT object
The PUT object operation allows you to add an object to a bucket. You must have the WRITE permission on a bucket to add an
object to it.
To emulate the atomicity guarantee of an S3 PUT object, objects are written to a temporary directory, .isi_s3 before getting
moved to the target path. On PUT, directories are implicitly created from writing the object. Implicitly created directories are
owned by the object owner and have permissions that are inherited from the parent directory.

Cross protocol locking

S3 object operations only operate in the shared mode lock domain.
The S3 protocol ignores byte range locks and other advisory locks. The PUT object operation takes a share mode lock
DENY_NONE on the target file with the delete access bit only for the rename operation on the target file which is released
upon completion. The GET operation takes a shared mode lock DENY_WRITE on the file with the read access bit to maintain
the atomicity during the read. This process ensures that the data is not modified from other clients or protocols during the GET
object operation.

Authentication
S3 uses its own method of authentication which relies on access keys that are generated for the user.
The access ID is sent in the HTTP request and is used to identify the user. The secret key is used in the signing algorithm.
There are two signing algorithms, Version 2 (v2) and Version 4 (v4).
S3 requests can either be signed or unsigned. A signed request contains an access ID and a signature. The access ID indicates
who the user is. The included signature value is the result of hashing several header values in the request with a secret key.
The server must use the access ID to retrieve a copy of the secret key, recompute the expected hash value of the request, and
compare against the signature sent. If they match, then the requester is authenticated, and any header value that was used in
the signature is now verified to be unchanged as well.
An S3 operation is only performed after the following criteria are met:
● Verify signatures that use AWS Signature Version 4 or AWS Signature Version 2 and validate it against the S3 request.
● Get user credential using access ID, once verification is complete.
● Perform authorization of user credential against bucket ACL.
● Perform traversal check of user credential against object path.
● Perform access check of user credential against object ACL.

Access keys
On OneFS, user keys are created using PAPI and stored in the kvstore.
The entry format in the kvstore is access_id:secret_key. The secret key is the randomly generated base64 string. The
access key is formatted as ZoneId_username_accid. In the S3 protocol, on receiving an authenticated request, the access

340 S3 Support
key is used to retrieve the secret key from the keystore. The signature is then generated on the server side, using the header
fields from the request and the user's secret key. If the signature matches, the request is successfully authenticated. The
username and zone information encoded in the access ID is used to generate the user security context and the request is
performed. By default, when a new key is created, the previous user key remains valid for 10 minutes. If you want, you can
change it up to 1440 minutes (24 hrs).

Access control
In S3, permissions on objects and buckets are defined by an ACL.
S3 supports five grant permission types: READ, WRITE, READ_ACP, WRITE_ACP, and FULL_CONTROL. The FULL_CONTROL
grant is a shorthand for all grants. Each ACE consists of one grantee and one grant. The grantee can either be a user or one
of the defined groups that OneFS S3 supports, Everyone and Authenticated Users. S3 ACLs are limited to a maximum of 100
entries.

ACL concepts
In S3, you must understand some concepts that are related to an ACL.
Grantee: S3 ACL grantees can be specified as either an ID or an email address to an AWS account. The ID is a randomly
generated value for each user. For the OneFS S3, only ID is supported and the ID is set to be the username or group of the
grantee.
S3 Groups: S3 has two predefined groups, Everyone and Authenticated Users. On OneFS, Everyone is translated to the
integrated World group SID S-1-1-0 and Authenticated Users is translated to the integrated group Authenticated User SID
S-1-5-11.
Canned ACL: When specifying ACLs in S3, the user can either specify the ACL as a list of grants or use a canned ACL.
The canned ACL is a predefined ACL list which is added to the file. The supported canned ACLS are private, public-read,
public-read-write, authenticated-read, bucket-owner-read, and bucket-owner-full-control.
Default ACL: When objects and buckets are created in S3 by a PUT operation, the user has the option of setting the ACL. If no
ACL is specified, then the private canned ACL is used by default, granting full control to the creator.

Object ACL
S3 ACLs are a legacy access control mechanism that predates Identity and Access Management (IAM).
On OneFSobjects, ACLs are translated to NTFS ACLs and stored on-disk. The table below lists the mapping of S3 grants to
NTFS grants. The difference in the OneFSS3 implementation is the WRITE grant is allowed on object ACLs. In S3, the WRITE
grant has no meaning as the S3 protocol does not allow modifying objects.
The WRITE grant instead allows an object to be modified through other access protocols. For translating S3 ACLs to NTFS
ACLs for operations PUT object ACL, the translation of each entry happens as shown in the table. The translation of NTFS
ACL to S3 ACL, as needed in the GET object ACL some entries may not be shown. As NTFS ACLs have a richer set of grants,
permissions that are not in the table are omitted. Deny ACEs are also omitted as S3 ACLs do not support a deny entry.

Table 20. Mapping S3 grants to NTFS grants

S3 ACL NTFS Permissions
READ SYNCHRONIZE | READ_DATA | READ_ATTR | READ_EA
WRITE SYNCHRONIZE | WRITE_DATA | WRITE_ATTR | WRITE_EA | APPEND_DATA
READ_ACP READ_CONTROL
WRITE_ACP WRITE_DAC
FULL_CONTROL FILE_ALL_ACCESS

An S3 ACL can also have one of the following pre-defined groups as a grantee:
● Authenticated Users: Any signed request is included in this group.
● All Users: Any request, signed or unsigned, is included in this group.
● Log Delivery Group: This group represents the log server that writes server access logs in the bucket.

S3 Support 341
Object ACLs translate to the following S3 permissions:

Table 21. Equivalent S3 Permissions - Object ACLs

ACL S3 Permissions
READ s3:GetObject, s3:GetObjectVersion, s3:GetObjectTorrent
WRITE Not Applicable
READ_ACP s3:GetObjectAcl, s3:GetObjectVersionAcl
WRITE_ACP s3:PutObjectAcl, s3:PutObjectVersionAcl
FULL_CONTROL All of the above

A difference in the OneFS implementation is the implicit owner ACE permission. In S3 the object owner is implicitly granted
FULL_CONTROL, regardless of the ACL on the file. On OneFS to emulate this behavior, an ace entry granting FULL_CONTROL
to the object owner is appended to the end of any ACL set by S3 which does not grant the owner FULL_CONTROL privilege.

Bucket ACL
S3 ACLs are a legacy access control mechanism that predates Identity and Access Management (IAM).
ACLs set on the bucket are written as part of the bucket configuration in Tardis. The ACLs define which S3 bucket operations
are allowed by which user.

Table 22. Grants for S3 operation

Operation Grant Required
PUT Object WRITE
DELETE Object WRITE
Multipart Upload (Initiate, upload, WRITE
complete, and abort)
List Multipart Upload READ
List Parts READ
HEAD Bucket READ
GET BUCKET (List Ob jets) READ
GET BUCKET ACL READ_ACP
PUT BUCKET ACL WRITE_ACP

Bucket ACLs translate to the following S3 permissions:

Table 23. Equivalent S3 Permissions - Bucket ACLs

ACL S3 Permissions
READ s3:ListBucket, s3:ListBucketVersions, s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads
WRITE s3:PutObject, s3:DeleteObject
READ_ACP s3:GetBucketAcl
WRITE_ACP s3:PutBucketAcl
FULL_CONTROL All of the above

342 S3 Support
Directory permissions
In S3, directories may be implicitly related on a PUT object for keys with delimiters.
For directories related this way, the user issuing the PUT object request becomes the owner of the directory and the directory
mode gets copied from the parent.

S3 Permissions
The following is a list of S3 permissions which OneFS supports.
● AbortMultipartUpload
● DeleteObject
● DeleteObjectVersion
● GetObject
● GetObjectAcl
● GetObjectVersion
● GetObjectVersionAcl
● ListMultipartUploadParts
● PutObject
● PutObjectAcl
● PutObjectVersionAcl
● CreateBucket
● DeleteBucket
● ListBucket
● ListBucketVersions
● ListAllMyBuckets
● ListBucketMultipartUploads
● GetBucketAcl
● PutBucketAcl
Some of these permissions require special handling. The following permissions are handled outside of the bucket, and may be
handled in PAPI:

Table 24. S3 Permissions

Permissions Effect
ListAllMyBuckets This permission gives an IAM user the ability to list all their
buckets. However, it is only applied in user policies, which
OneFS does not support. OneFS users are automatically given
the ability to list their own buckets without must set this
permission. Also, a user with ISI_PRIV_S3 privilege can list
buckets using PAPI.
CreateBucket This permission gives the users the ability to create a bucket.
This can only be used in S3 user policies. Users are allowed or
denied this permission using PAPI bucket configuration.

The following permissions interact with file system ACLs and require extra handling:

Table 25. S3 Permissions

Permissions Effect
DeleteObject S3 gives a user permission to delete a particular object.
CreateBucket S3 gives a user permission to create or update a particular
object.
ListBucket S3 gives a user permission to list objects in the bucket.

You cannot bypass file system permissions. If a user has the ListBucket permission, but does not have read permission on a
directory, then the user cannot list the files in that directory.

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Anonymous authentication
Requests sent without an authentication header in S3 are run as the anonymous user.
An anonymous user is mapped to the user 'nobody'.

Access key management

Access keys are used to sign the requests you send to the S3 protocol.
Access keys consist of two parts, an access key ID and a secret access key. Like a username and password, you must use both
the access key ID and secret access key together to authenticate your requests.
You must generate access key ID and secret access key for an authenticated user upon request. When the user makes an S3
request, the access key ID in request is used to look up the secret access key, and then the signing of request is verified. A PAPI
interface is provided for generating this pair for each identity and persists the pair to a cluster-wide store. Each request looks up
its credentials in this cluster-wide store, with a possible in-memory cache in the S3 protocol head.
To generate the access key ID and secret access key for an authenticated user upon request, the following rules apply:
● The access key ID can be a 16 to 128-byte string.
● A secret key of size 28 bytes is randomly generated, and the user cannot set it.
● You must store the access key ID and secret access key on disk, for high availability.
● There is a username (1 to 64-byte string) associated with the access key ID.
Users with the Administrator role are only authorized to generate access keys.
Users have only one access key ID. However, users may have at most two secret keys when the old key has an expiry date set.
If an Administrator creates a new secret key for a user and forgets to set the expiry time, the administrator cannot go back and
set the expiry time again. The new key is created and the old key is set to expire after 10 minutes, by default.

Managing keys
You can access the S3 key management feature from OneFS web administration interface.
You can generate secret keys and access IDs.

View key information

View key information for a user.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Key Management tab.
3. View the information related to the default access zone (System) like access key ID, secret key, creation, and expiry dates.
The details contain only valid (non-expired) keys. It returns empty response if no key is present in the persistent data store.

Generate secret key

The administrator can generate a secret key for a user.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Key Management tab.
3. In the Current access zone list, click the access zone (if any) the user belongs to.
4. Click Select user for whom you want to create the secret key.
The Search user dialog box appears.
5. In the Search user dialog box, enter the details in the User and Providers fields and click Search.
The name of the user and if there is any description that is associated with the user, appears in a tabular format. You can
click Reset to revert the search process.
6. Select the user from the table and click Select user.
The user is selected.

344 S3 Support
 Click Close to exit the Search user dialog box.
7. Click Create a key.
Access ID and secret key are generated, and the following message appears:

Created S3 Key.
S3 key has been created successfully.

8. You can now view the secret key details in a tabular format. The columns are:
● Type: Displays the type of the key (existing or old)
● Secret Keys: Click Show key to view the key and Hide key to hide the key.
● Expiry time: The time for the existing key is not mentioned. If you have created more than one key, the expiry time of
the old key is displayed.
● Creating date: Displays the date and time when the key was created.

Generate another secret key

The administrator can generate more than one secret key for a user.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Key Management tab.
3. In the Current access zone list, click the access zone that the user belongs to.
4. Click Select user for whom you want to generate another secret key.
The Search user dialog box appears.
5. In the Search user dialog box, enter the details in the User and Providers fields and click Search.
The name of the user and if there is any description about the user, appears in a tabular format. You can click Reset to
revert the search process.
6. Select the user from the table and click Select user.
7. Click Create new key.
Click Show keys to view the details of the existing secret key.
The Create secret key dialog box appears.
8. In the Keep Existing key active for minutes box, enter the value (in minutes) when the existing key must expire. You can
also use the up and down arrows to adjust the values.
9. Click Create key.
The new secret key is generated, and the following message appears:

Created S3 Key.
S3 key has been created successfully.

The old key expires after the time limit that you have set.
The default expiry time is 10 minutes. The maximum time that you can set is 1440 minutes (24 hours) and an error similar to
the following appears of the time is exceeded:

Field: existing_key_expiry_time has error: The value must be less

than or equal to 1440.
Input validation failed.

Now that you have two secret keys, if you try to create a new key, the Force delete old key check box appear. You can
select the check box if you want to forcefully create the key. The first key that you had created is not valid anymore. Only
two keys appear at one time.

Delete secret key

The administrator can delete a secret key for a user.
1. Click Protocols > Objects Storage (S3) .
2. Click the Key Management tab.
3. In the Current access zone list, click the access zone the user belongs to.
4. Click Select user for whom you want to create the secret key.
The Search user dialog box appears.

S3 Support 345
5. In the Search user dialog box, enter the details in the User and Providers fields and click Search.
The name of the user and if there is any description that is associated with the user, appears in a tabular format. You can
click Reset to revert the search process.
6. Select the user from the table and click Select user.
The user is selected.
Click Close to exit the Search user dialog box.
7. You can now view the secret key details in a tabular format. The columns are:
● Type: Displays the type of the key (existing or old)
● Secret Keys: Click Show key to view the key and Hide key to hide the key.
● Expiry time: The time for the existing key is not mentioned. If you have created more than one key, the expiry time of
the old key is displayed.
● Creating date: Displays the date and time when the key was created.
8. Click Delete Keys on the left bottom of the table.
The key is deleted.

346 S3 Support
 25
SmartQuotas
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• SmartQuotas overview
• Quota types
• Default quota type
• Usage accounting and limits
• Disk-usage calculations
• Quota notifications
• Quota notification rules
• Quota reports
• Creating quotas
• Managing quotas
• Managing quota notifications
• Email quota notification messages
• Managing quota reports
• Basic quota settings
• Advisory limit quota notification rules settings
• Soft limit quota notification rules settings
• Hard limit quota notification rules settings
• Limit notification settings
• Quota report settings

SmartQuotas overview
The SmartQuotas module is an optional quota-management tool that monitors and enforces administrator-defined storage limits.
Using accounting and enforcement quota limits, reporting capabilities, and automated notifications, SmartQuotas manages
storage use, monitors disk storage, and issues alerts when disk-storage limits are exceeded.
Quotas help you manage storage usage according to criteria that you define. Quotas are used for tracking—and sometimes
limiting—the amount of storage that a user, group, or directory consumes. Quotas help ensure that a user or department does
not infringe on the storage that is allocated to other users or departments. In some quota implementations, writes beyond the
defined space are denied, and in other cases, a simple notification is sent.
NOTE: Do not apply quotas to /ifs/.ifsvar/ or its subdirectories. If you limit the size of the /ifs/.ifsvar/
directory through a quota, and the directory reaches its limit, jobs such as File-System Analytics fail. A quota blocks older
job reports from being deleted from the /ifs/.ifsvar/ subdirectories to make room for newer reports.

The SmartQuotas module requires a separate license. For more information about the SmartQuotas module or to activate the
module, contact your Dell Technologies sales representative.

Quota types
OneFS uses the concept of quota types as the fundamental organizational unit of storage quotas. Storage quotas comprise a
set of resources and an accounting of each resource type for that set. Storage quotas are also called storage domains.
Storage quotas creation requires three identifiers:
● The directory to monitor
● Whether snapshots are tracked against the quota limit
● The quota type (directory, user, or group)

SmartQuotas 347
 NOTE: Do not create quotas of any type on the OneFS root (/ifs). A root-level quota may significantly degrade
performance.
You can choose a quota type from the following entities:

Directory A specific directory and its subdirectories.

NOTE: You cannot choose a default directory quota type using the Web UI. You can only create
a default directory quota using the CLI. However, you can manage default directory quotas using
the UI (modify the quota settings, link, and unlink subdirectories). All immediate subdirectories in a
default directory quota inherit the parent directory quota settings unless otherwise modified. Specific
directory quotas that you configure take precedence over a default directory.

User Either a specific user or default user (every user). Specific-user quotas that you configure take
precedence over a default user quota.
Group All members of a specific group or all members of a default group (every group). Any specific-group
quotas that you configure take precedence over a default group quota. Associating a group quota with a
default group quota creates a linked quota.

You can create multiple quota types on the same directory, but they must be of a different type or have a different snapshot
option. You can specify quota types for any directory in OneFS and nest them within each other to create a hierarchy of
complex storage-use policies.
Nested storage quotas can overlap. For example, the following quota settings ensure that the finance directory never exceeds 5
TB, while limiting the users in the finance department to 1 TB each:
● Set a 5 TB hard quota on /ifs/data/finance.
● Set 1 TB soft quotas on each user in the finance department.

Default quota type

Default quotas automatically create other quotas for users, groups, or immediate subdirectories in a specified directory.
There are three default quota types that you can configure on a specified directory: default user, default group, and default
directory. A default quota allows quota automation on an /ifs folder and specifies a policy for new entities that match
a trigger. For example, if a default user quota is configured on the /ifs/dir1 folder, the default-user@/ifs/dir1
becomes specific-user@/ifs/dir1 for each specific-user that is not otherwise defined. Default-user quota enforcement
is copied to a specific-user in the directory, and the inherited quota is called a linked quota. In this way, each user account gets
its own usage accounting.
NOTE: Configuration changes for linked quotas must be made on the parent quota that the linked quota is inheriting from.
Changes to the parent quota are propagated to all children. To override configuration from the parent quota, unlink the
quota first.
If a default directory quota is configured on the /ifs/parent folder, any immediate subdirectory created within that directory
automatically inherits quota configuration information from the default domain. Only immediate subdirectories inherit default
directory quotas; a subdirectory within an immediate subdirectory (a second-level or deeper subdirectory) will not inherit the
default directory quota. For example, you create a default-directory quota type on the /ifs/parent directory. Then you
create the /ifs/parent/child subdirectory. This subdirectory inherits the default directory quota settings. Then you create
the second-level /ifs/parent/child/grandchild subdirectory. This subdirectory does not inherit the default directory
quota settings.
You cannot choose a default quota type using the Web UI. You can only create default quotas using the CLI. However, you can
manage default quotas using the UI (modify the quota settings, link, and unlink subdirectories). Specific directory quotas that
you configure take precedence over a default directory. For more information on creating default quotas, see the OneFS CLI
Command Reference Guide.

348 SmartQuotas
Usage accounting and limits
Storage quotas can perform two functions: they monitor storage space through usage accounting and they manage storage
space through enforcement limits.
You can configure OneFS quotas by usage type to track or limit storage use. The accounting option, which monitors disk-
storage use, is useful for auditing, planning, and billing. Enforcement limits set storage limits for users, groups, or directories.

Track storage The accounting option tracks but does not limit disk-storage use. Using the accounting option for a quota,
consumption you can monitor inode count and physical and logical space resources. Physical space refers to all of the
without space that is used to store files and directories, including data, metadata, and data protection overhead in
specifying a the domain. There are two types of logical space:
storage limit
● File system logical size: Logical size of files as per file system. Sum of all files sizes, excluding file
metadata and data protection overhead.
● Application logical size : Logical size of file apparent to the application. Used file capacity from the
application point of view, which is usually equal to or less than the file system logical size. However, in
the case of a sparse file, application logical size can be greater than file system logical size. Application
logical size includes capacity consumption on the cluster as well as data tiered to the cloud.
Storage consumption is tracked using file system logical size by default, which does not include protection
overhead. As an example, by using the accounting option, you can do the following:
● Track the amount of disk space that is used by various users or groups to bill each user, group, or
directory for only the disk space used.
● Review and analyze reports that help you identify storage usage patterns and define storage policies.
● Plan for capacity and other storage needs.

Specify storage Enforcement limits include all of the functionality of the accounting option, plus the ability to limit disk
limits storage and send notifications. Using enforcement limits, you can logically partition a cluster to control
or restrict how much storage that a user, group, or directory can use. For example, you can set hard-
or soft-capacity limits to ensure that adequate space is always available for key projects and critical
applications and to ensure that users of the cluster do not exceed their allotted storage capacity.
Optionally, you can deliver real-time email quota notifications to users, group managers, or administrators
when they are approaching or have exceeded a quota limit.

NOTE:

If a quota type uses the accounting-only option, enforcement limits cannot be used for that quota.
The actions of an administrator who is logged in as root may push a domain over a quota threshold. For example, changing the
protection level or taking a snapshot has the potential to exceed quota parameters. System actions such as repairs also may
push a quota domain over the limit.
The system provides three types of administrator-defined enforcement thresholds.

Threshold type Description

Hard Limits disk usage to a size that cannot be exceeded. If an operation, such as a file write,
causes a quota target to exceed a hard quota, the following events occur:
● The operation fails
● An alert is logged to the cluster
● A notification is issued to specified recipients.

Writes resume when the usage falls below the threshold.

Soft Allows a limit with a grace period that can be exceeded until the grace period expires. When a
soft quota is exceeded, an alert is logged to the cluster and a notification is issued to specified
recipients; however, data writes are permitted during the grace period.
If the soft threshold is still exceeded when the grace period expires, data writes fail, and a
notification is issued to the recipients you have specified.

SmartQuotas 349
Threshold type Description

Writes resume when the usage falls below the threshold.

Advisory An informational limit that can be exceeded. When an advisory quota threshold is exceeded,
an alert is logged to the cluster and a notification is issued to specified recipients. Advisory
thresholds do not prevent data writes.

Disk-usage calculations
For each quota that you configure, you can specify whether physical or logical space is included in future disk usage calculations.
You can configure quotas to include the following types of physical or logical space:

Type of physical Description

or logical space to
include in quota
Physical size Total on-disk space consumed to store files in File data blocks (non-sparse regions) + IFS
OneFS. Apart from file data, this counts user metadata (ACLs, ExAttr, inode) + data protection
metadata (for example, ACLs and user-specified overhead
extended attributes) and data protection
overhead. Accounts for on-premise capacity
consumption with data protection.
File system logical size Approximation of disk usage on other systems File data blocks (non-sparse regions) + IFS
by ignoring protection overhead. The space metadata (Acls, ExAttr, inode)
consumed to store files with 1x protection.
Accounts for on-premise capacity consumption
without data protection.
Application logical size Apparent size of file that a user/application The physical size and file system logical size
observes. How an application sees space quota metrics count the number of blocks
available for storage regardless of whether required to store file data (block-aligned). The
files are cloud-tiered, sparse, deduped, or application logical size quota metric is not block-
compressed. It is the offset of the file's aligned. In general, the application logical size is
last byte (end-of-file). Application logical size smaller than either the physical size or file system
is unaffected by the physical location of logical size, as the file system logical size counts
the data, on or off cluster, and therefore the full size of the last block of the file, whereas
includes CloudPools capacity across multiple application logical size considers the data present
locations. Accounts for on-premise and off- in the last block. However, application logical size
premise capacity consumption without data will be higher for sparse files.
protection.

Most quota configurations do not need to include data protection overhead calculations, and therefore do not need to include
physical space, but instead can include logical space (either file system logical size, or application logical size). If you do not
include data protection overhead in usage calculations for a quota, future disk usage calculations for the quota include only the
logical space that is required to store files and directories. Space that is required for the data protection setting of the cluster is
not included.
Consider an example user who is restricted by a 40 GB quota that does not include data protection overhead in its disk usage
calculations. (The 40 GB quota includes file system logical size or application logical size.) If your cluster is configured with
a 2x data protection level and the user writes a 10 GB file to the cluster, that file consumes 20 GB of space but the 10GB
for the data protection overhead is not counted in the quota calculation. In this example, the user has reached 25 percent of
the 40 GB quota by writing a 10 GB file to the cluster. This method of disk usage calculation is recommended for most quota
configurations.
If you include data protection overhead in usage calculations for a quota, future disk usage calculations for the quota include the
total amount of space that is required to store files and directories, in addition to any space that is required to accommodate
your data protection settings, such as parity or mirroring. For example, consider a user who is restricted by a 40 GB quota
that includes data protection overhead in its disk usage calculations. (The 40 GB quota includes physical size.) If your cluster is
configured with a 2x data protection level (mirrored) and the user writes a 10 GB file to the cluster, that file actually consumes
20 GB of space: 10 GB for the file and 10 GB for the data protection overhead. In this example, the user has reached 50 percent
of the 40 GB quota by writing a 10 GB file to the cluster.

350 SmartQuotas
 NOTE: Cloned and deduplicated files are treated as ordinary files by quotas. If the quota includes data protection overhead,
the data protection overhead for shared data is not included in the usage calculation.
You can configure quotas to include the space that is consumed by snapshots. A single path can have two quotas applied to
it: one without snapshot usage, which is the default, and one with snapshot usage. If you include snapshots in the quota, more
files are included in the calculation than are in the current directory. The actual disk usage is the sum of the current directory
and any snapshots of that directory. You can see which snapshots are included in the calculation by examining the .snapshot
directory for the quota path.

NOTE: Only snapshots created after the QuotaScan job finishes are included in the calculation.

Quota notifications
Quota notifications are generated for enforcement quotas, providing users with information when a quota violation occurs.
Reminders are sent periodically while the condition persists.
Each notification rule defines the condition that is to be enforced and the action that is to be executed when the condition is
true. An enforcement quota can define multiple notification rules. When thresholds are exceeded, automatic email notifications
can be sent to specified users, or you can monitor notifications as system alerts or receive emails for these events.
Notifications can be configured globally, to apply to all quota domains, or be configured for specific quota domains.
Enforcement quotas support the following notification settings. A given quota can use only one of these settings.

Limit notification settings Description

Disable quota notifications Disables all notifications for the quota.

Use the system settings for quota notifications Uses the global default notification for the specified type of
quota.

Create custom notifications rules Enables the creation of advanced, custom notifications that
apply to the specific quota. Custom notifications can be
configured for any or all of the threshold types (hard, soft,
or advisory) for the specified quota.

Quota notification rules

You can write quota notification rules to generate alerts that are triggered by event thresholds.
When an event occurs, a notification is triggered according to your notification rule. For example, you can create a notification
rule that sends an email when a disk-space allocation threshold is exceeded by a group.
You can configure notification rules to trigger an action according to event thresholds (a notification condition). A rule can
specify a schedule, such as "every day at 1:00 AM," for executing an action or immediate notification of certain state transitions.
When an event occurs, a notification trigger may execute one or more actions, such as sending an email or sending a cluster
alert to the interface. The following examples demonstrate the types of criteria that you can use to configure notification rules.
● Notify when a threshold is exceeded; at most, once every 5 minutes
● Notify when allocation is denied; at most, once an hour
● Notify while over threshold, daily at 2 AM
● Notify while grace period expired weekly, on Sundays at 2 AM
Notifications are triggered for events grouped by the following categories:

Instant Includes the write-denied notification, triggered when a hard threshold denies a write, and the threshold-
notifications exceeded notification, triggered at the moment a hard, soft, or advisory threshold is exceeded. These are
one-time notifications because they represent a discrete event in time.
Ongoing Generated on a scheduled basis to indicate a persisting condition, such as a hard, soft, or advisory
notifications threshold being over a limit or a soft threshold's grace period being expired for a prolonged period.

SmartQuotas 351
Quota reports
The OneFS SmartQuotas module provides reporting options that enable administrators to manage cluster resources and analyze
usage statistics.
Storage quota reports provide a summarized view of the past or present state of the quota domains. After raw reporting data
is collected by OneFS, you can produce data summaries by using a set of filtering parameters and sort types. Storage-quota
reports include information about violators, grouped by threshold types. You can generate reports from a historical data sample
or from current data. In either case, the reports are views of usage data at a given time. OneFS does not provide reports on
data aggregated over time, such as trending reports, but you can use raw data to analyze trends. There is no configuration limit
on the number of reports other than the space needed to store them.
OneFS provides the following data-collection and reporting methods:
● Scheduled reports are generated and saved on a regular interval.
● Ad hoc reports are generated and saved at the request of the user.
● Live reports are generated for immediate and temporary viewing.
Scheduled reports are placed by default in the /ifs/.isilon/smartquotas/reports directory, but the location is
configurable to any directory under /ifs. Each generated report includes quota domain definition, state, usage, and global
configuration settings. By default, ten reports are kept at a time, and older reports are purged. You can create ad hoc reports at
any time to view the current state of the storage quotas system. These live reports can be saved manually. Ad hoc reports are
saved to a location that is separate from scheduled reports to avoid skewing the timed-report sets.

Creating quotas
You can create two types of storage quotas to monitor data: accounting quotas and enforcement quotas. Storage quota limits
and restrictions can apply to specific users, groups, or directories.
The type of quota that you create depends on your goal.
● Enforcement quotas monitor and limit disk usage. You can create enforcement quotas that use any combination of hard
limits, soft limits, and advisory limits.
NOTE: Enforcement quotas are not recommended for snapshot-tracking quota domains.
● Accounting quotas monitor, but do not limit, disk usage.
NOTE: Before using quota data for analysis or other purposes, verify that no QuotaScan jobs are running.

Create an accounting quota

You can create an accounting quota to monitor but not limit disk usage.
Optionally, you can include snapshot data, data-protection overhead, or both, in the accounting quota.
1. Click File system > SmartQuotas > Quotas and usage.
2. Click Create a quota.
The Create a quota dialog box appears.
3. From the Quota type list, select the target for this quota.
● Directory quota
● User quota
● Group quota
4. Depending on the target that you selected, select the entity that you want to apply the quota to. For example, if you
selected User quota from the Quota type list, you can target either all users or a specific user.
5. In the Path field, type the path for the quota, or click Browse, and then select a directory.
6. In the Description box, type something relevant about the quota.
The maximum length for the description field is 1024 bytes.
7. In the Quota accounting area, select the options that you want to use.
● To include snapshot data in the accounting quota, select Include snapshots in the storage quota.
● To include the metadata and data protection overhead in the accounting quota, select Physical size.
● To include the physical size minus the metadata and data protection overhead, select File system logical size.

352 SmartQuotas
 ● To include capacity consumption on the cluster as well as data tiered to the cloud, select Application logical size. This
accounting quota does not measure file system space, but provides the application/user view of the used file capacity.
8. In the Quota limits area, select Track storage without specifying a storage limit.
9. Select how available space should be shown:
● Size of smallest hard or soft threshold
● Size of cluster
10. Click Create quota.
Before using quota data for analysis or other purposes, verify that no QuotaScan jobs are in progress by checking Cluster
management > Job operations > Job summary.

Create an enforcement quota

You can create an enforcement quota to monitor and limit disk usage.
You can create enforcement quotas that set hard, soft, and advisory limits.
1. Click File system > SmartQuotas > Quotas and usage.
2. Click Create a quota.
The Create a quota dialog box appears.
3. From the Quota type list, select the target for this quota.
● Directory quota
● User quota
● Group quota
4. Depending on the target that you selected, select the entity that you want to apply the quota to. For example, if you
selected User quota from the Quota type list, you can target either all users or a specific user.
5. In the Path field, type the path for the quota, or click Browse, and then select a directory.
6. In the Description box, type something relevant about the quota.
The maximum length for the description field is 1024 bytes.
7. In the Quota accounting area, select the options that you want to use.
● To include snapshot data in the accounting quota, select Include snapshots in the storage quota.
● To include the metadata and data protection overhead in the accounting quota, select Physical size.
● To include the physical size minus the metadata and data protection overhead, select File system logical size.
● To include capacity consumption on the cluster as well as data tiered to the cloud, select Application logical size. This
accounting quota does not measure file system space, but provides the application/user view of the used file capacity.
8. In the Quota limits area, select Specify storage limits.
9. Select the check box next to each limit that you want to enforce.
10. Type numerals in the fields and from the lists, select the values that you want to use for the quota.
11. Select how available space should be shown:
● Size of smallest hard or soft threshold
● Size of cluster
12. In the Quota notifications area, select the notification option that you want to apply to the quota.
13. Optional: If you selected the option to use custom notification rules, click the link to expand the custom notification type that
applies to the usage-limit selections.
14. Click Create quota.
Before using quota data for analysis or other purposes, verify that no QuotaScan jobs are in progress by checking Cluster
management > Job operations > Job summary.

Managing quotas
You can modify the configured values of a storage quota, and you can enable or disable a quota. You can also create quota limits
and restrictions that apply to specific users, groups, or directories.
Quota management in OneFS is simplified by the quota search feature, which helps you locate a quota or quotas by using filters.
You can unlink quotas that are associated with a parent quota, and configure custom notifications for quotas. You can also
disable a quota temporarily and then enable it when needed.

SmartQuotas 353
 NOTE: Moving quota directories across quota domains is not supported.

Search for quotas

You can search for a quota using a variety of search criteria.

1. Click File system > SmartQuotas > Quotas and usage.

2. In the filter bar, select the options that you want to filter by.
● From the Filters list, select the quota type that you want to find (Directory, User, Group, Default user, or Default
group).
● To search for quotas that are over the limit, select Over limit from the Exceeded list.
● In the Path field, type a full or partial path. You can use the wildcard character (*) in the Path field.
● To search subdirectories, select Include children from the Recursive path list.
Quotas that match the search criteria appear in the Quotas and usage table.
An accounting or enforcement quota with a threshold value of zero is indicated by a dash (–). You can click the column
headings to sort the result set.
NOTE:

To clear the result set and display all storage quotas, click Reset.

Manage quotas
Quotas help you monitor and analyze the current or historical use of disk storage. You can search for quotas, and you can view,
modify, delete, and unlink a quota.
You must run an initial QuotaScan job for the default or scheduled quotas, or the data that is displayed may be incomplete.
Before you modify a quota, consider how the changes will affect the file system and end users.
NOTE:
● The options to edit or delete a quota display only when the quota is not linked to a default quota.
● The option to unlink a quota is available only when the quota is linked to a default quota.
1. Click File System > SmartQuotas > Quotas and usage.
2. Optional: In the filter bar, select the options that you want to filter by.
● From the Filters list, select the quota type that you want to find (Directory, User, Group, Default user, or Default
group).
● To search for quotas that are over the limit, select Over limit from the Exceeded list.
● In the Path field, type a full or partial path. You can use the wildcard character (*) in the Path field.
● To search subdirectories, select Include children from the Recursive path list.
Quotas that match the search criteria appear in the Quotas and usage table.
3. Optional: Locate the quota that you want to manage. You can perform the following actions:
● To review or edit this quota, click View Details.
● To delete the quota, click Delete.
● To unlink a linked quota, click Unlink.
NOTE: Configuration changes for linked quotas must be made on the parent (default) quota that the linked quota
is inheriting from. Changes to the parent quota are propagated to all children. If you want to override configuration
from the parent quota, you must first unlink the quota.

Export a quota configuration file

You can export quota settings as a configuration file, which can then be imported for reuse to another PowerScale cluster. You
can also store the exported quota configurations in a location outside of the cluster. This task may only be performed from the
OneFS command line interface.
You can pipe the XML report to a file or directory. The file can then be imported to another cluster.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.

354 SmartQuotas
2. At the command prompt, run the following command:

isi_classic quota list --export

The quota configuration file displays as raw XML.

Import a quota configuration file

You can import quota settings in the form of a configuration file that has been exported from another PowerScale cluster. This
task can only be performed from the OneFS command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Navigate to the location of the exported quota configuration file.
3. At the command prompt, run the following command, where <filename> is the name of an exported configuration file:

isi_classic quota import --from-file=<filename>

The system parses the file and imports the quota settings from the configuration file. Quota settings that you configured
before importing the quota configuration file are retained, and the imported quota settings are effective immediately.

Managing quota notifications

Quota notifications can be enabled or disabled, modified, and deleted.
By default, a global quota notification is already configured and applied to all quotas. You can continue to use the global quota
notification settings, modify the global notification settings, or disable or set a custom notification for a quota.
Enforcement quotas support four types of notifications and reminders:
● Threshold exceeded
● Over-quota reminder
● Grace period expired
● Write access denied

If a directory service is used to authenticate users, you can configure notification mappings that control how email addresses
are resolved when the cluster sends a quota notification. If necessary, you can remap the domain that is used for quota email
notifications and you can remap Active Directory domains, local UNIX domains, or both.

Configure default quota notification settings

You can configure default global quota notification settings that apply to all quotas of a specified threshold type.
The custom notification settings that you configure for a quota take precedence over the default global notification settings.
1. Click File System > SmartQuotas > Settings.
2. In the Scheduled Reporting area, you can configure the following reporting options:
● In the Archive Directory field, type or browse to the directory where you want to archive the scheduled quota reports.
● In the Number of Scheduled Reports Retained field, type the number of reports that you want to archive.
● Select the reporting schedule options that you want, and then click
● Select Scheduled to enable scheduled reporting, or select Manual to disable scheduled reporting.
3. In the Manual Reporting area, you can configure the following reporting options:
● In the Archive Directory field, type or browse to the directory where you want to archive the manually-generated quota
reports.
● In the Number of Live Reports Retained field, type the number of reports that you want to archive.
4. In the Email Mapping area, define the mapping rule or rules that you want to use. To add a email mapping rule, click Add a
Mapping Rule, and then specify the settings for the rule.
5. In the Notification Rules area, define default notification rules for each rule type.

SmartQuotas 355
 a. Click Add a Notification Rule.
The Create a Notification Rule dialog box opens.
b. From the Rule type list, select the rule type to use.
c. In the Rule Settings area, select the notify option to use.
6. Click Create Rule.
7. Click Save Changes.
Before using quota data for analysis or other purposes, verify that no QuotaScan jobs are in progress by checking Cluster
Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.

Configure custom quota notification rules

You can configure custom quota notification rules that apply only to a specified quota.
To configure a custom notification rule, an enforcement quota must exist or be in the process of being created. To configure
notifications for an existing enforcement quota, follow the procedure to modify a quota and then use these steps to set the
quota notification rules.
Quota-specific custom notification rules must be configured for that quota. If notification rules are not configured for a quota,
the default event notification configuration is used. For more information about configuring default notification rules, see Create
an event notification rule.
1. In the Edit Quota Details dialog box, select Create custom notification nules.
2. To add a notification rule, click Create a notification rule, and then select the values that you want to use for the
notification.
3. After you have completed configuring the settings for the notification, click Create Rule.
4. Click Save Changes.
Before using quota data for analysis or other purposes, verify that no QuotaScan jobs are in progress by checking Cluster
Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.

Map an email notification rule for a quota

Email notification mapping rules control how email addresses are resolved when the cluster sends a quota notification.
If required, you can remap the domain that is used for SmartQuotas email notifications. You can remap Active Directory
Windows domains, local UNIX domains, or NIS domains.

NOTE: You must be logged in to the web administration interface to perform this task.

1. Click File System > SmartQuotas > Settings.

2. Optional: In the Email Mapping area, click Add a Mapping Rule.
3. From the Type list, select the authentication provider type for this notification rule. The default is Local. To determine
which authentication providers are available on the cluster, browse to Access > Authentication Providers.
4. From the Current domain list, select the domain that you want to use for the mapping rule. If the list is blank, browse to
Cluster Management > Network Configuration, and then specify the domains that you want to use for mapping.
5. In the Map to domain field, type the name of the domain that you want to map email notifications to. This can be the same
domain name that you selected from the Current domain list. To specify multiple domains, separate the domain names with
commas.
6. Click Create Rule.

Email quota notification messages

If email notifications for exceeded quotas are enabled, you can customize PowerScale templates for email notifications or create
your own. Email notifications can be in either plain text format or in properly formatted HTML.
Plain text quota email templates
There are three plain text email notification templates provided with OneFS. The templates are located in /etc/ifs and are
described in the following table:

356 SmartQuotas
Template Description
quota_email_template.txt A notification that disk quota has been exceeded.
quota_email_grace_template.txt A notification that disk quota has been exceeded (also
includes a parameter to define a grace period in number of
days).
quota_email_test_template.txt A notification test message you can use to verify that a user is
receiving email notifications.

If the default email notification templates do not meet your needs, you can configure your own custom email notification
templates by using a combination of text and SmartQuotas variables. Whether you choose to create your own templates or
modify the existing ones, make sure that the first line of the template file is a Subject: line. For example:

Subject: Disk quota exceeded

If you want to include information about the message sender, include a From: line immediately under the subject line. If you use
an email address, include the full domain name for the address. For example:

From: [email protected]

In this example of the quota_email_template.txt file, a From: line is included. Additionally, the default text "Contact
your system administrator for details" at the end of the template is changed to name the administrator:

Subject: Disk quota exceeded

From: [email protected]

The <ISI_QUOTA_DOMAIN_TYPE> quota on path <ISI_QUOTA_PATH> owned by

<ISI_QUOTA_OWNER> has exceeded the <ISI_QUOTA_TYPE> limit.
The quota limit is <ISI_QUOTA_THRESHOLD>, and <ISI_QUOTA_USAGE>
is currently in use. You may be able to free some disk space by
deleting unnecessary files. If your quota includes snapshot usage,
your administrator may be able to free some disk space by deleting
one or more snapshots. Contact Jane Anderson ([email protected])
for details.

This is an example of a what a user will see as an emailed notification (note that the SmartQuotas variables are resolved):

Subject: Disk quota exceeded

From: [email protected]

The advisory disk quota on directory /ifs/data/sales_tools/collateral

owned by jsmith on production-Boris was exceeded.

The quota limit is 10 GB, and 11 GB is in use. You may be able

to free some disk space by deleting unnecessary files. If your
quota includes snapshot usage, your administrator may be able
to free some disk space by deleting one or more snapshots.
Contact Jane Anderson ([email protected]) for details.

HTML quota email template

Quota notifications can also be formatted in HTML An example of a properly formatted HTML quota notification template
containing a source image and SmartQuotas variables is as follows:

<html><body>
<img src="https://i.dell.com/sites/imagecontent/app-merchandizing/responsive/Shop/Browse/
PublishingImages/dell-social-logo.jpg">
<h1>Quota Exceeded</h1><p></p>
<hr>
<p>The path <ISI_QUOTA_PATH> has exceeded the threshold <ISI_QUOTA_THRESHOLD> for this
<ISI_QUOTA_TYPE> quota.</p>
</body></html>

In this example, the <ISI_QUOTA_PATH>, <ISI_QUOTA_THRESHOLD>, and <ISI_QUOTA_TYPE> variables are substituted
with the values of the variables from the cluster in the body of the HTML email message. For example:
Quota Exceeded

SmartQuotas 357
The path /ifs/data/myfolder has exceeded the threshold 4.00G for this advisory quota.

Custom email notification template variable descriptions

An email template contains text, and, optionally, variables that represent values. You can use any of the SmartQuotas variables
in your templates.

Variable Description Example

ISI_QUOTA_DOMAIN_TYPE Quota type. Valid values are: directory, user, group, default-directory
default-directory, default-user, default-group
ISI_QUOTA_EXPIRATION Expiration date of grace period Fri May 22 14:23:19 PST 2015
ISI_QUOTA_GRACE Grace period, in days 5 days
ISI_QUOTA_HARD_LIMIT Includes the hard limit information of the quota You have 30 MB left until you hit
to make advisory/soft email notifications more the hard quota limit of 50 MB.
informational.
ISI_QUOTA_NODE Hostname of the node on which the quota event someHost-prod-wf-1
occurred
ISI_QUOTA_OWNER Name of quota domain owner jsmith
ISI_QUOTA_PATH Path of quota domain /ifs/data

ISI_QUOTA_THRESHOLD Threshold value 20 GB

ISI_QUOTA_TYPE Threshold type Advisory
ISI_QUOTA_USAGE Disk space in use 10.5 GB

Customize email quota notification templates

You can customize PowerScale templates for email notifications. Customizing templates can be performed only from the OneFS
command line interface.
This procedure assumes that you are using the PowerScale templates, which are located in the /etc/ifs directory.
NOTE: It is recommend that you do not edit the templates directly. Instead, copy them to another directory to edit and
deploy them.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Copy one of the default templates to a directory in which you can edit the file and later access it through the OneFS web
administration interface. For example:

cp /etc/ifs/quota_email_template.txt /ifs/data/quotanotifiers/
quota_email_template_copy.txt

3. Open the template file in a text editor. For example:

edit /ifs/data/quotanotifiers/quota_email_template_copy.txt

The template appears in the editor.

4. Edit the template. If you are using or creating a customized template, ensure the template has a Subject: line.
5. Save the changes. Template files must be saved as .txt files.
6. In the web administration interface, browse to File System > SmartQuotas > Settings.
7. In the Notification Rules area, click Add a Notification Rule.
The Create a Notification Rule dialog box appears.
8. From the Rule type list, select the notification rule type that you want to use with the template.
9. In the Rule Settings area, select a notification type option.
10. Depending on the rule type that was selected, a schedule form might appear. Select the scheduling options that you want to
use.

358 SmartQuotas
11. In the Message template field, type the path for the message template, or click Browse to locate the template.
12. Optional: Click Create Rule

Managing quota reports

You can configure and schedule reports to help you monitor, track, and analyze storage use on a PowerScale cluster.
You can view and schedule reports and customize report settings to track, monitor, and analyze disk storage use. Quota reports
are managed by configuring settings that give you control over when reports are scheduled, how they are generated, where and
how many are stored, and how they are viewed. The maximum number of scheduled reports that are available for viewing in
the web-administration interface can be configured for each report type. When the maximum number of reports are stored, the
system deletes the oldest reports to make space for new reports as they are generated.

Create a quota report schedule

You can configure quota report settings to generate the quota report on a specified schedule.
These settings determine whether and when scheduled reports are generated, and where and how the reports are stored. If you
disable a scheduled report, you can still run unscheduled reports at any time.
1. Click File System > SmartQuotas > Settings.
2. Optional: On the Quota Settings page, in the Scheduled Reporting area, select Scheduled.
The schedule panel appears.
3. In the schedule panel, select the report frequency and reporting schedule options that you want to set.
4. Click Save Changes.
Reports are generated according to the scheduling criteria and can be viewed by clicking File System > SmartQuotas >
Generated Reports Archive.

Generate a quota report

In addition to scheduled quota reports, you can generate a report to capture usage statistics at a point in time.
Before you can generate a quota report, quotas must exist and no QuotaScan jobs can be running.
1. Click File System > SmartQuotas > Generated Reports Archive.
2. Click Create a Manual Report.
The new report appears in the Quota Reports list.

Locate a quota report

You can locate quota reports, which are stored as XML files, and use your own tools and transforms to view them. This task can
only be performed from the OneFS command-line interface.
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Navigate to the directory where quota reports are stored. The following path is the default quota report location:
/ifs/.isilon/smartquotas/reports
NOTE: If quota reports are not in the default directory, you can run the isi quota settings command to find the
directory where they are stored.

3. At the command prompt, run the ls command.

● To view a list of all quota reports in the directory, run the following command:

ls -a *.xml

● To view a specific quota report in the directory, run the following command:

ls <filename>.xml

SmartQuotas 359
Basic quota settings
When you create a storage quota, the following attributes must be defined, at a minimum. When you specify usage limits,
additional options are available for defining the quota.

Option Description

Path The directory that the quota is on.

Directory Quota Set storage limits on a directory.

User Quota Create a quota for every current or future user that stores
data in the specified directory.

Group Quota Create a quota for every current or future group that stores
data in the specified directory.

Include snapshots in the storage quota Count all snapshot data in usage limits. This option cannot
be changed after the quota is created.

Enforce the limits for this quota based on physical size Base quota enforcement on storage usage which includes
metadata and data protection.

Enforce the limits for this quota based on file system logical size Base quota enforcement on storage usage which does not
include metadata and data protection.

Enforce the limits for this quota based on application logical size Base quota enforcement on storage usage which includes
capacity consumption on the cluster as well as data tiered to
the cloud.

Track storage without specifying a storage limit Account for usage only.

Specify storage limits Set and enforce advisory, soft, or absolute limits.

Advisory limit quota notification rules settings

You can configure custom quota notification rules for advisory limits for a quota. These settings are available when you select
the option to use custom notification rules.

Option Description Exceeded Remains exceeded

Notify owner Select to send an email Yes Yes
notification to the owner of
the entity.
Notify other contact(s) Select to send email Yes Yes
notifications to other
recipient(s) and type the
recipient's email address(es).
NOTE: You can only enter
one email address before
the cluster is committed.
After the cluster is
committed, you can enter
multiple comma-separated
email addresses. Duplicate
email addresses are
identified and only unique
addresses are stored. You

360 SmartQuotas
Option Description Exceeded Remains exceeded

can enter a maximum

of 1,024 characters of
comma-separated email
addresses.

Message template Type the path for the custom Yes Yes
template, or click Browse to
locate the custom template.
Leave the field blank to use
the default template.

Create cluster event Select to generate an event Yes Yes

notification for the quota
when exceeded.
Minimum notification interval Specify the time interval Yes No
to wait (in hours, days, or
weeks) before generating the
notification. This minimizes
duplicate notifications.
Schedule Specify the notification and No Yes
alert frequency: daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly. Depending
on the selection, specify
intervals, day to send, time of
day, multiple email messages
per rule.

Soft limit quota notification rules settings

You can configure custom soft limit notification rules for a quota. These settings are available when you select the option to use
custom notification rules.

Option Description Exceeded Remains Grace period Write access

exceeded expired denied
Notify owner Select to send an Yes Yes Yes Yes
email notification to
the owner of the
entity.
Notify other Select to Yes Yes Yes Yes
contact(s) send email
notifications to
other recipient(s)
and type the
recipient's email
address(es).
NOTE: You can
only enter one
email address
before the
cluster is
committed.
After the
cluster is
committed, you
can enter
multiple

SmartQuotas 361
Option Description Exceeded Remains Grace period Write access
exceeded expired denied

comma-
separated email
addresses.
Duplicate email
addresses are
identified and
only unique
addresses are
stored. You can
enter a
maximum of
1,024
characters of
comma-
separated email
addresses.

Message template Type the path Yes Yes Yes Yes

for the custom
template, or
click Browse to
locate the custom
template.
Leave the field
blank to use the
default template.

Create cluster Select to Yes Yes Yes Yes

event generate an event
notification for the
quota.
Minimum Specify the time Yes No No Yes
notification interval interval to wait
(in hours, days,
or weeks) before
generating the
notification. This
minimizes duplicate
notifications.
Schedule Specify the No Yes Yes No
notification and
alert frequency:
daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly.
Depending on the
selection, specify
intervals, day to
send, time of
day, multiple email
messages per rule.

362 SmartQuotas
Hard limit quota notification rules settings
You can configure custom quota notification rules for hard limits for a quota. These settings are available when you select the
option to use custom notification rules.

Option Description Write access denied Exceeded

Notify owner Select to send an email Yes Yes
notification to the owner of
the entity.
Notify other contact(s) Select to send email Yes Yes
notifications to other
recipient(s) and type the
recipient's email address(es).
NOTE: You can only enter
one email address before
the cluster is committed.
After the cluster is
committed, you can enter
multiple comma-separated
email addresses. Duplicate
email addresses are
identified and only unique
addresses are stored. You
can enter a maximum
of 1,024 characters of
comma-separated email
addresses.

Message template Type the path for the custom Yes Yes
template, or click Browse to
locate the custom template.
Leave the field blank to use
the default template.

Create cluster event Select to generate an event Yes Yes

notification for the quota.
Minimum notification interval Specify the time interval Yes No
to wait (in hours, days, or
weeks) before generating the
notification. This minimizes
duplicate notifications.
Schedule Specify the notification and No Yes
alert frequency: daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly. Depending
on the selection, specify
intervals, day to send, time of
day, multiple email messages
per rule.

Limit notification settings

Enforcement quotas support the following notification settings for each threshold type. A quota can use only one of these
settings.

Notification setting Description

Disable quota notifications Disable all notifications for the quota.

SmartQuotas 363
Notification setting Description
Use the system settings for quota notifications Use the default notification rules that you configured for the
specified threshold type.
Create custom notification rules Provide settings to create basic custom notifications that
apply only to this quota.

Quota report settings

You can configure quota report settings that track disk usage. These settings determine whether and when scheduled reports
are generated, and where and how reports are stored. When the maximum number of reports are stored, the system deletes the
oldest reports to make space for new reports as they are generated.

Setting Description

Scheduled reporting Enables or disables the scheduled reporting feature.

● Off. Manually generated on-demand reports can be run at
any time.
● On. Reports run automatically according to the schedule
that you specify.

Report frequency Specifies the interval for this report to run: daily, weekly,
monthly, or yearly. You can use the following options to
further refine the report schedule.
Generate report every. Specify the numeric value for the
selected report frequency; for example, every 2 months.
Generate reports on. Select the day or multiple days to
generate reports.
Select report day by. Specify date or day of the week to
generate the report.
Generate one report per specified by. Set the time of day
to generate this report.
Generate multiple reports per specified day. Set the
intervals and times of day to generate the report for that day.

Scheduled report archiving Determines the maximum number of scheduled reports that
are available for viewing on the SmartQuotas Reports page.
Limit archive size for scheduled reports to a specified
number of reports. Type the integer to specify the maximum
number of reports to keep.
Archive Directory. Browse to the directory where you want
to store quota reports for archiving.

Manual report archiving Determines the maximum number of manually generated

(on-demand) reports that are available for viewing on the
SmartQuotas Reports page.
Limit archive size for live reports to a specified number of
reports. Type the integer to specify the maximum number of
reports to keep.
Archive Directory. Browse to the directory where you want
to store quota reports for archiving.

364 SmartQuotas
 26
Storage Pools
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Storage pools overview
• Storage pool functions
• Autoprovisioning
• Node pools
• Virtual hot spare
• Spillover
• Suggested protection
• Protection policies
• SSD strategies
• Other SSD mirror settings
• Global namespace acceleration
• L3 cache overview
• Tiers
• File pool policies
• Managing node pools in the web administration interface
• Managing L3 cache from the web administration interface
• Managing tiers
• Creating file pool policies
• Managing file pool policies
• Monitoring storage pools

Storage pools overview

OneFS organizes different node types into separate node pools. You can configure node pool membership to include node types
that you specify. You can also add node types to, and remove node types from, existing node pools. You can organize these
node pools into logical tiers of storage. By activating a SmartPools license, you can create file pool policies that store files in
these tiers automatically, based on criteria that you specify.
Without an active SmartPools license, OneFS manages all node pools as a single pool of storage. File data and metadata are
striped across the entire cluster so that data is protected, secure, and readily accessible. All files belong to the default file pool
and are governed by the default file pool policy. In this mode, OneFS provides functions such as autoprovisioning, virtual hot
spare (VHS), global namespace acceleration (GNA), L3 cache, and storage tiers.
When you activate a SmartPools license, additional functions become available, including custom file pool policies and spillover
management. With a SmartPools license, you can manage your dataset with more granularity to improve the performance of
your cluster.
The following table summarizes storage pool functions based on whether a SmartPools license is active.

Function Inactive SmartPools license Active SmartPools license

Automatic storage pool provisioning Yes Yes
Virtual hot spare Yes Yes
SSD strategies Yes Yes
L3 cache Yes Yes
Tiers Yes Yes

Storage Pools 365

Function Inactive SmartPools license Active SmartPools license
GNA Yes Yes
File pool policies No Yes
Spillover management No Yes

Storage pool functions

When a cluster is installed, and whenever nodes are added to the cluster, OneFS automatically groups nodes into node pools.
Autoprovisioning of nodes into node pools enables OneFS to optimize performance, reliability, and data protection on the
cluster.
OneFS uses specific criteria to determine how, or whether, to group nodes into node pools. Nodes are compatible if there
are no restrictions between them, or if existing restrictions can be overridden ("soft restrictions"). Nodes are equivalent if
no restrictions exist between them. Nodes are automatically provisioned together only if they are equivalent. If nodes are
compatible but not equivalent, you can manually move them into the same node pool.
Without an active SmartPools license, OneFS applies a default file pool policy to organize all data into a single file pool. With this
policy, OneFS distributes data across the entire cluster so that data is protected and readily accessible. When you activate a
SmartPools license, additional functions become available.
OneFS provides the following functions, with or without an active SmartPools license:

Autoprovisioning Automatically groups equivalent nodes into node pools for optimal storage efficiency and protection. At
of node pools least three equivalent nodes are required for autoprovisioning to work.
Tiers Groups node pools into logical tiers of storage. If you activate a SmartPools license for this feature, you
can create custom file pool policies and direct different file pools to appropriate storage tiers.
Default file pool Governs all file types and can store files anywhere on the cluster. Custom file pool policies, which require
policy a SmartPools license, take precedence over the default file pool policy.
Requested Specifies a requested protection setting for the default file pool, per node pool, or even on individual files.
protection You can leave the default setting in place, or choose the suggested protection calculated by OneFS for
optimal data protection.
Virtual hot spare Reserves a portion of available storage space for data repair in the event of a disk failure.
SSD strategies Defines the type of data that is stored on SSDs in the cluster. For example, storing metadata for read/
write acceleration.
L3 cache Specifies that SSDs in nodes are used to increase cache memory and speed up file system performance
across larger working file sets.
Global Activates global namespace acceleration (GNA), which enables data stored on node pools without
namespace SSDs to access SSDs elsewhere in the cluster to store extra metadata mirrors. Extra metadata mirrors
acceleration accelerate metadata read operations.

When you activate a SmartPools license, OneFS provides the following additional functions:

Custom file pool Creates custom file pool policies to identify different classes of files, and stores these file pools in logical
policies storage tiers. For example, you can define a high-performance tier of node pools and an archival tier
of high-capacity node pools. Then, with custom file pool policies, you can identify file pools based on
matching criteria, and you can define actions to perform on these pools. For example, one file pool policy
can identify all JPEG files older than a year and store them in an archival tier. Another policy can move all
files that were created or modified within the last three months to a performance tier.
Storage pool Enables automated capacity overflow management for storage pools. Spillover defines how to handle
spillover write operations when a storage pool is not writable. If spillover is enabled, data is redirected to a
specified storage pool. If spillover is disabled, new data writes fail and an error message is sent to the
client that is attempting the write operation.

366 Storage Pools

Autoprovisioning
When you add a node to a cluster, OneFS attempts to assign the node to a node pool. This process is known as
autoprovisioning, which helps OneFS to provide optimal performance, load balancing, and file system integrity across a cluster.
A node is not autoprovisioned to a node pool and made writable until at least three equivalent nodes are added to the cluster. If
you add only two equivalent nodes, no data is stored on these nodes until a third equivalent node is added.
If a node fails or is removed from the cluster so that fewer than three nodes remain, the node pool becomes underprovisioned.
In this case, the two remaining nodes are still writable. If only one node remains, the node is not writable, but remains readable.
New nodes added to your cluster are likely to be different from the nodes in existing node pools. Unless you add three new
equivalent nodes each time you upgrade your cluster, the new nodes are not autoprovisioned. However, you can add new node
types to existing node pools. You can add nodes one at a time to your cluster, and the new nodes can become fully functioning
peers within existing node pools.

Node pools
A node pool is a group of three or more nodes that forms a single pool of storage. As you add nodes to the cluster, OneFS
attempts to automatically provision the new nodes into node pools.
To autoprovision a node, OneFS requires that the new node be equivalent to the other nodes in the node pool. If the new node
is equivalent, OneFS provisions the new node to the node pool. All nodes in a node pool are peers, and data is distributed across
nodes in the pool. Each provisioned node increases the aggregate disk, cache, CPU, and network capacity of the cluster.
We strongly recommend that you let OneFS handle node provisioning. However, if you have a special requirement or use case,
you can move nodes from an autoprovisioned node pool into a node pool that you define manually. The capability to create
manually-defined node pools is available only through the OneFS command-line interface, and should be deployed only after
consulting with Dell PowerScale Technical Support.
If you try to remove a node from a node pool for the purpose of adding it to a manual node pool, and the result would leave
fewer than three nodes in the original node pool, the removal fails. When you remove a node from a manually-defined node pool,
OneFS attempts to autoprovision the node back into an equivalent node pool.
If you add fewer than three equivalent nodes to your cluster, OneFS cannot autoprovision these nodes. In these cases, you can
add new node types to existing node pools. Adding the new node types can enable OneFS to provision the newly added nodes to
a compatible node pool.
Node pools can use SSDs either as storage or as L3 cache, but not both, with the following exception. PowerScale F200 and
F600 nodes are full SSD nodes and can only be used as storage. Enabling L3 cache on F200 and F600 nodes is not an option.
NOTE: Do not use NL nodes in node pools used for NFS or SMB. It is recommended that you use high performance nodes
to handle NFS and SMB workloads.

Compatibilities
If there are compatibility restrictions between new nodes and the existing nodes in a node pool, OneFS cannot autoprovision the
new nodes. To enable new nodes to join a compatible node pool, add the new node type to the existing node pool. Modify node
pool compatibilities using the command-line interface.
Add new node type to existing node pool
For example, suppose that your cluster has an X410 node pool and you add a newer X410 node. OneFS attempts to
autoprovision the new node to the X410 node pool. However, if the new X410 node has different RAM than the older X410
nodes, then OneFS cannot autoprovision the new node. To provision the new node into the existing X410 node pool, add the
new X410 node type to the existing X410 node pool.
Use the isi storagepool nodetypes list command to view the node types and their IDs, then isi storagepool
nodepools modify <nodepool_name> --add-node-type-ids=<new_nodetype_id> to add the new node type to
the existing node pool.
For example, suppose that your X410 node pool name is x410_nodepool and isi storagepool nodetypes list shows
the new node type ID as 12:

isi storagepool nodepools modify x410_nodepool --add-node-type-ids=12

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Can you add A300/A3000 nodes to an A200/A2000 node pool?
If you want to add a half chassis of A300 or A3000 to a given cluster of A2000 or A200, what are the requirements? Are
you required to add a full chassis of A300 or A3000, or is the option of using a half-populated chassis of A300/A3000 or
correspondingly A300L/A3000L feasible?
● The answer is that it is possible to add just two nodes, however the drive capacities need to match. In addition, the A300s
that you are adding must be configured so that the cache to L3 matches the A200s.
● If you are using SSDs for cache, then they do not need to match, because mismatched SSDs perform correctly if you are
using L3 cache. See the following table for compatibility requirements.
Compatibility Requirements (to add A300/A3000 nodes to an existing A200/A2000 node pool)

Node type Compatible Node Type MLK Cache Compatibility Compatibility

Requirements
A200/A2000 Yes A3000L/A300L Compatible: Nodes are SATA disk capacity
hard coded with L3 needs to match
SSD cache disksdo not
need to match

A200/A2000 Yes A3000/A300 Compatible: Nodes SATA disk capacity

must switch cache needs to match
disks to L3
SSD cache disks do not
need to match

Remove a node type from a node pool

You can also remove a node type from a node pool, for example, if you want to move that node type into its own pool. Using the
above example, to remove the X410 nodes with a different RAM capacity and node type ID 12 from the X410 node pool:

isi storagepool nodepools modify x410_nodepool --remove-node-type-ids=12

Performance considerations and incompatible node types determine compatibility restrictions. For example:
● Performance can be affected by adding a particular node type to an existing node pool.
● A particular node type can be incompatible with the nodes in an existing pool.
In that case, OneFS generates a message describing the compatibility issue.
NOTE: SSD compatibilities require that L3 cache is enabled on all nodes. If you attempt to move nodes with SSDs into a
node pool on which L3 cache is not enabled, the process fails with an error message. Ensure that L3 cache is enabled for
the existing node pool and try again. L3 cache can only be enabled on nodes that have fewer than 16 SSDs and at least a
2:1 ratio of HDDs to SSDs. On Generation 6 nodes that support SSD compatibilities, SSD count is ignored. If SSDs are used
for storage, then SSD counts must be identical on all nodes in a node pool. If SSD counts are left unbalanced, node pool
efficiency and performance can be less than optimal.
For example, the PowerScale F200 and F600 node types are incompatible with each other and with previous node types. You
cannot add F200 or F600 nodes to a node pool containing any other node types (for example, S210 or F800 nodes). They are
not hybrid nodes, so enabling L3 cache is not an option. They can be used as storage only.
The following table shows the compatibilities between specific PowerScale archive and hybrid nodes. Nodes in the same row of
the table are compatible. Compatible nodes can be provisioned into the same node pool. Nodes that are not compatible cannot
be provisioned into the same node pool.

PowerScale node Compatible PowerScale node

A2000 A3000 (OneFS 9.2.1.0 and later)
A200 A300 (OneFS 9.2.1.0 and later)
H400 A300 (OneFS 9.2.1.0 and later)
H500 H700 (OneFS 9.2.1.0 and later)
H5600 H7000 (OneFS 9.2.1.0 and later)

A300 nodes are compatible with A200 and H400 nodes. However, A200 and H400 nodes are not compatible with each other.

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See Compatibility restrictions for more information.

Compatibility restrictions
OneFS enforces pool and node type restrictions for cluster configuration and node compatibility. Restrictions represent the rules
governing cluster configuration and node compatibility. They prevent performance degradation of the node types within a node
pool.
OneFS supports the following restriction types.
● Hard node type restriction: A rule that is not allowed. If you try to modify a cluster configuration in a way that generates a
hard restriction, the modification fails. OneFS presents a message that describes the restrictions that result in denying the
modification request.
● Soft node type restriction: A rule that is allowed but requires confirmation before being implemented. If you try to modify a
cluster configuration in a way that generates a soft restriction, OneFS presents an advisory notice. To continue, you must
confirm the modification.
NOTE: If the modification request results in both hard and soft restrictions, OneFS reports only the hard restrictions.
● Pool restriction: A rule that exists for a node pool.
○ Hard pool restriction: A rule that represents an invalid change to a node group. For example, you cannot modify a manual
node pool or modify a pool in a way that results in that pool being underprovisioned.
○ Soft pool restriction: A rule that represents a change to a node group that requires confirmation. Requesting a
modification that results in a soft pool restriction generates an advisory notice. To continue, you must confirm the
modification.
Some examples of hard and soft restrictions are as follows.
● There are hard node type restrictions for the PowerScale F200 and F600 node types.
○ F200 and F600 node types are incompatible with each other and with previous node types.
○ F200 node types can form node pools only with other compatible F200 nodes.
○ F600 node types can form node pools only with other compatible F600 nodes.
○ F200 and F600 nodes are storage only nodes and cannot be used as L3 cache.
○ F200 nodes must have the same SSD size to be considered compatible.
If you try to add F200 or F600 nodes to an incompatible node pool, the modification fails.
● A300 nodes are compatible with A200 and H400 nodes. However, A200 and H400 nodes are not compatible with each
other.
● There is a soft node type restriction for different RAM capacities. Any difference in RAM is allowed and there are no RAM
ranges for compatibilities. If you add a node to a node pool that has different RAM than existing nodes in that pool, OneFS
displays an advisory notice. Confirm the operation to add the node to the node pool.

Manual node pools

If the node pools automatically provisioned by OneFS do not meet your needs, you can configure node pools manually. You do
this by moving nodes from an existing node pool into the manual node pool.
This capability enables you to store data on specific nodes according to your purposes, and is available only through the OneFS
command-line interface.
CAUTION: It is recommended that you enable OneFS to provision nodes automatically. Manually created node
pools might not provide the same performance and efficiency as automatically managed node pools, particularly
if your changes result in fewer than 20 nodes in the manual node pool.

Virtual hot spare

Virtual hot spare (VHS) settings enable you to reserve disk space to rebuild the data in the event that a drive fails.
You can specify both a number of virtual drives to reserve and a percentage of total storage space. For example, if you specify
two virtual drives and 15 percent, each node pool reserves virtual drive space equivalent to two drives or 15 percent of their
total capacity (whichever is larger).
You can reserve space in node pools across the cluster for this purpose by specifying the following options:
● At least 1–4 virtual drives.

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● At least 0–20% of total storage.
OneFS calculates the larger number of the two factors to determine the space that is allocated. When configuring VHS settings,
be sure to consider the following information:
● If you deselect the option to Ignore reserved space when calculating available free space (the default), free-space
calculations include the space reserved for VHS.
● If you deselect the option to Deny data writes to reserved disk space (the default), OneFS can use VHS for normal data
writes. We recommend that you leave this option selected, or data repair can be compromised.
● If Ignore reserved space when calculating available free space is enabled while Deny data writes to reserved disk
space is disabled, it is possible for the file system to report utilization as more than 100 percent.
NOTE: VHS settings affect spillover. If the VHS option Deny data writes to reserved disk space is enabled while Ignore
reserved space when calculating available free space is disabled, spillover occurs before the file system reports 100%
utilization.

Spillover
When you activate a SmartPools license, you can designate a node pool or tier to receive spillover data when the hardware
specified by a file pool policy is full or otherwise not writable.
If you do not want data to spill over to a different location because the specified node pool or tier is full or not writable, you can
disable this feature.
NOTE: Virtual hot spare reservations affect spillover. If the setting Deny data writes to reserved disk space is enabled,
while Ignore reserved space when calculating available free space is disabled, spillover occurs before the file system
reports 100% utilization.

Suggested protection
Based on the configuration of your PowerScale cluster, OneFS automatically calculates the amount of protection that is
recommended to maintain Dell Technologies PowerScale stringent data protection requirements.
OneFS includes a function to calculate the suggested protection for data to maintain a theoretical mean-time to data loss
(MTTDL) of 5000 years. Suggested protection provides the optimal balance between data protection and storage efficiency on
your cluster.
By configuring file pool policies, you can specify one of multiple requested protection settings for a single file, for subsets of files
called file pools, or for all files on the cluster.
It is recommended that you do not specify a setting below suggested protection. OneFSperiodically checks the protection level
on the cluster, and alerts you if data falls below the recommended protection.

Protection policies
OneFS provides a number of protection policies to choose from when protecting a file or specifying a file pool policy.
The more nodes you have in your cluster, up to 20 nodes, the more efficiently OneFS can store and protect data, and the
higher levels of requested protection the operating system can achieve. Depending on the configuration of your cluster and
how much data is stored, OneFS might not be able to achieve the level of protection that you request. For example, if you
have a three-node cluster that is approaching capacity, and you request +2n protection, OneFS might not be able to deliver the
requested protection.
The following table describes the available protection policies in OneFS.

Protection policy Summary

+1n Tolerate the failure of 1 drive or the failure of 1 node
+2d:1n Tolerate the failure of 2 drives or the failure of 1 node
+2n Tolerate the failure of 2 drives or the failure of 2 nodes
+3d:1n Tolerate the failure of 3 drives or the failure of 1 node

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Protection policy Summary
+3d:1n1d Tolerate the failure of 3 drives or the failure of 1 node and 1 drive
+3n Tolerate the failure of 3 drives or the failure of 3 nodes
+4d:1n Tolerate the failure of 4 drives or the failure of 1 node
+4d:2n Tolerate the failure of 4 drives or the failure of 2 nodes
+4n Tolerate the failure of 4 drives or the failure of 4 nodes
Mirrors: Duplicates, or mirrors, data over the specified number of nodes. For example, 2x results in
two copies of each data block.
2x
NOTE: Mirrors can use more data than the other protection policies, but might be
3x an effective way to protect files that are written non-sequentially or to provide faster
4x access to important files.

5x
6x
7x
8x

SSD strategies
OneFS clusters can contain nodes that include solid-state drives (SSD). OneFS autoprovisions nodes with SSDs into one or
more node pools. The SSD strategy defined in the default file pool policy determines how SSDs are used within the cluster, and
can be set to increase performance across a wide range of workflows. SSD strategies apply only to SSD storage.
You can configure file pool policies to apply specific SSD strategies as needed. When you select SSD options during the creation
of a file pool policy, you can identify the files in the OneFS cluster that require faster or slower performance. When the
SmartPools job runs, OneFS uses file pool policies to move this data to the appropriate storage pool and drive type.
The following SSD strategy options that you can set in a file pool policy are listed in order of slowest to fastest choices:

Avoid SSDs Writes all associated file data and metadata to HDDs only.
CAUTION: Use this option to free SSD space only after consulting with Dell Technologies
Support. Using this strategy can negatively affect performance.

Metadata read Writes both file data and metadata to HDDs. This is the default setting. An extra mirror of the file
acceleration metadata is written to SSDs, if available. The extra SSD mirror is included in the number of mirrors, if any,
required to satisfy the requested protection.
Metadata Writes file data to HDDs and metadata to SSDs, when available. This strategy accelerates metadata
read/write writes in addition to reads but requires about four to five times more SSD storage than the Metadata
acceleration read acceleration setting. Enabling GNA does not affect read/write acceleration.
Data on SSDs Uses SSD node pools for both data and metadata, regardless of whether global namespace acceleration
is enabled. This SSD strategy does not result in the creation of additional mirrors beyond the normal
requested protection but requires significantly increased storage requirements compared with the other
SSD strategy options.

Note the following considerations for setting and applying SSD strategies.
● To use an SSD strategy that stores metadata and/or data on SSDs, you must have SSD storage in the node pool or tier,
otherwise the strategy is ignored.
● If you specify an SSD strategy but there is no storage of the type that you specified, the strategy is ignored.
● If you specify an SSD strategy that stores metadata and/or data on SSDs but the SSD storage is full, OneFS attempts to
spill data to HDD. If HDD storage is full, OneFS raises an out of space error.

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Other SSD mirror settings
OneFS creates multiple mirrors for file system structures and, by default, stores one mirror for each of these structures on SSD.
You can specify that all mirrors for these file system structures be stored on SSD.
OneFS creates mirrors for the following file system structures:
● system B-tree
● system delta
● QAB (quota accounting block)
For each structure, OneFS creates multiple mirrors across the file system and stores at least one mirror on an SSD. Because
SSDs provide faster I/O than HDDs, OneFS can more quickly locate and access a mirror for each structure when needed.
Alternatively, you can specify that all mirrors created for those file system structures are stored on SSDs.
NOTE: The capability to change the default mirror setting for system B-tree, system delta, and QAB is available only in the
OneFS CLI, specifically in the isi storagepool settings command.

Global namespace acceleration

Global namespace acceleration (GNA) enables data on node pools without SSDs to have additional metadata mirrors on SSDs
elsewhere in the cluster. Metadata mirrors on SSDs can improve file system performance by accelerating metadata read
operations.
You can enable GNA only if 20 percent or more of the nodes in the cluster contain at least one SSD and 1.5 percent or more of
total cluster storage is SSD-based. For best results, before enabling GNA, make sure that at least 2.0 percent of total cluster
storage is SSD-based.
Even when enabled, GNA becomes inactive if the ratio of SSDs to HDDs falls below the 1.5 percent threshold, or if the
percentage of nodes containing at least one SSD falls below 20 percent. GNA is reactivated when those requirements are met
again. While GNA is inactive in such cases, existing SSD mirrors are readable, but newly written metadata does not get the extra
SSD mirror.
NOTE: Node pools with L3 cache enabled are effectively invisible for GNA purposes. All ratio calculations for GNA are
done exclusively for node pools without L3 cache enabled. So, for example, if you have six node pools on your cluster, and
three of them have L3 cache enabled, GNA is applied only to the three remaining node pools without L3 cache enabled. On
node pools with L3 cache enabled, metadata does not need an additional GNA mirror, because metadata access is already
accelerated by L3 cache.

L3 cache overview
You can configure nodes with solid-state drives (SSDs) to increase cache memory and speed up file system performance across
larger working file sets.
OneFS caches file data and metadata at multiple levels. The following table describes the types of file system cache available on
a PowerScale cluster.

Name Type Profile Scope Description

L1 cache RAM Volatile Local node Also known as front-end cache, holds copies of file system
metadata and data requested by the front-end network
through NFS, SMB, HTTP, and so on.
L2 cache RAM Volatile Global Also known as back-end cache, holds copies of file system
metadata and data on the node that owns the data.
SmartCache Variable Non- Local node Holds any pending changes to front-end files waiting to be
volatile written to storage. This type of cache protects write-back
data through a combination of RAM and stable storage.
L3 cache SSD Non- Global Holds file data and metadata released from L2 cache,
volatile effectively increasing L2 cache capacity.

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 NOTE: L3 cache can only be enabled on nodes that have fewer than 16 SSDs and at least a 2:1 ratio of HDDs to SSDs.

OneFS caches frequently accessed file and metadata in available random access memory (RAM). Caching enables OneFS to
optimize data protection and file system performance. When RAM cache reaches capacity, OneFS normally discards the oldest
cached data and processes new data requests by accessing the storage drives. This cycle is repeated each time RAM cache fills
up.
You can deploy SSDs as L3 cache to reduce the cache cycling issue and further improve file system performance. L3 cache adds
significantly to the available cache memory and provides faster access to data than hard disk drives (HDD).
As L2 cache reaches capacity, OneFS evaluates data to be released and, depending on your workflow, moves the data to L3
cache. In this way, much more of the most frequently accessed data is held in cache, and overall file system performance is
improved.
For example, consider a cluster with 128GB of RAM. Typically the amount of RAM available for cache fluctuates, depending
on other active processes. If 50 percent of RAM is available for cache, the cache size would be approximately 64GB. If this
same cluster had three nodes, each with two 200GB SSDs, the amount of L3 cache would be 1.2TB, approximately 18 times the
amount of available L2 cache.
L3 cache is enabled by default for new node pools. A node pool is a collection of nodes that are all of the same equivalence
class, or for which compatibilities have been created. L3 cache applies only to the nodes where the SSDs reside. For the HD400
node, which is primarily for archival purposes, L3 cache is on by default and cannot be turned off. On the HD400, L3 cache is
used only for metadata.
If you enable L3 cache on a node pool, OneFS manages all cache levels to provide optimal data protection, availability, and
performance. In addition, in case of a power failure, the data on L3 cache is retained and still available after power is restored.
NOTE: Although some benefit from L3 cache is found in workflows with streaming and concurrent file access, L3 cache
provides the most benefit in workflows that involve random file access.

Migration to L3 cache
L3 cache is enabled by default on new nodes.
You can enable L3 cache as the default for all new node pools or manually for a specific node pool, either through the command
line or from the web administration interface. L3 cache can be enabled only on node pools with nodes that contain SSDs. When
you enable L3 cache, OneFS migrates data that is stored on the SSDs to HDD storage disks and then begins using the SSDs as
cache.
When you enable L3 cache, OneFS displays the following message:

WARNING: Changes to L3 cache configuration can have a long completion time. If this is a
concern, please contact Dell Technologies Support for more information.

You must confirm whether OneFS should proceed with the migration. After you confirm the migration, OneFS handles the
migration as a background process, and, depending on the amount of data stored on your SSDs, the process of migrating data
from the SSDs to the HDDs might take a long time.

NOTE: You can continue to administer your cluster while the data is being migrated.

L3 cache on archive-class node pools

Some PowerScale nodes are high capacity units designed primarily for archival work flows, which involve a higher percentage
of data writes compared to data reads. On node pools made up of these archive-class nodes, SSDs are deployed for L3 cache,
which significantly improves the speed of file system traversal activities such as directory lookup.
L3 cache with metadata only stored in SSDs provides the best performance for archiving data on these high-capacity nodes. L3
cache is on by default, as described in the following table.

Nodes Comments
HD-series For all node pools made up of HD-series nodes, L3 cache stores metadata only in SSDs and cannot
be disabled.
Generation 6 A-series For all node pools made up of Generation 6 A-series nodes, L3 cache stores metadata only in SSDs
and cannot be disabled.

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Tiers
A tier is a user-defined collection of node pools that you can specify as a storage pool for files. A node pool can belong to only
one tier.
You can create tiers to assign your data to any of the node pools in the tier. For example, you can assign a collection of
node pools to a tier specifically created to store data that requires high availability and fast access. In a three-tier system, this
classification may be Tier 1. You can classify data that is used less frequently or that is accessed by fewer users as Tier-2 data.
Tier 3 usually comprises data that is seldom used and can be archived for historical or regulatory purposes.

File pool policies

File pool policies define sets of files—file pools—and where and how they are stored on your cluster. You can configure multiple
file pool policies with filtering rules that identify specific file pools and the requested protection and I/O optimization settings for
these file pools. Creating custom file pool policies requires an active SmartPools license.
The initial installation of OneFS places all files into a single file pool, which is subject to the default file pool policy. Without an
active SmartPools license, you can configure only the default file pool policy, which controls all files and stores them anywhere
on the cluster.
With an active SmartPools license, OneFS augments basic storage functions by enabling you to create custom file pool policies
that identify, protect, and control multiple file pools. With a custom file pool policy, for example, you can define and store a file
pool on a specific node pool or tier for fast access or archival purposes.
When you create a file pool policy, flexible filtering criteria enable you to specify time-based attributes for the dates that files
were last accessed, modified, or created. You can also define relative time attributes, such as 30 days before the current date.
Other filtering criteria include file type, name, size, and custom attributes. The following examples demonstrate a few ways you
can configure file pool policies:
● A file pool policy to set stronger protection on a specific set of important files.
● A file pool policy to store frequently accessed files in a node pool that provides the fastest reads or read/writes.
● A file pool policy to evaluate the last time files were accessed, so that older files are stored in a node pool best suited for
regulatory archival purposes.
When the SmartPools job runs, typically once a day, it processes file pool policies in priority order. You can edit, reorder, or
remove custom file pool policies at any time. The default file pool policy, however, is always last in priority order. Although you
can edit the default file pool policy, you cannot reorder or remove it. When custom file pool policies are in place, the settings in
the default file pool policy apply only to files that are not covered by another file pool policy.
When a new file is created, OneFS chooses a storage pool based on the default file pool policy, or, if it exists, a higher-priority
custom file pool policy that matches the file. If a new file was originally matched by the default file pool policy, and you later
create a custom file pool policy that matches the file, the file will be controlled by the new custom policy. As a result, the file
could be placed in a different storage pool the next time the SmartPools job runs.

FilePolicy job
You can use the FilePolicy job to apply file pool policies.
The FilePolicy job supplements the SmartPools job by scanning the file system index that the File System Analytics (FSA) job
uses. You can use this job if you are already using snapshots (or FSA) and file pool policies to manage data on the cluster. The
FilePolicy job is an efficient way to keep inactive data away from the fastest tiers. Because the scan is done on the index, which
does not require many locks, ensure that you run the IndexUpdate job before running the FilePolicy job. In this way, you can
vastly reduce the number of times a file is visited before it is tiered down.
You must keep down-tiering data in ways they already have, such as file pool policies that move data based on a fixed age.
Adjust the data based on the fullness of their tiers.
To ensure that the cluster is correctly laid out and adequately protected, run the SmartPools job. Use the SmartPools job after
modifying the cluster, such as adding or removing nodes. You can also use the job for modifying the SmartPools settings (such
as default protection settings), and if a node is down.
To use this feature, you must schedule the FilePolicy job daily and continue running the SmartPools job at a lower frequency.
You can run the SmartPools job after events that may affect node pool membership.
You can use the following options when running the FilePolicy job:

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● --directory-only: This option helps you to process directories and is done to redirect new file ingest.
● --policy-only: This option helps you to set policies. Make sure not to restripe.
● --ingest: This option helps you to use -directory-only and -policy-only in combination.
● --nop: This option helps you to calculate and report the work that you have done.

Managing node pools in the web administration

interface
You can manage node pools through the OneFS web administration interface. You must have the SmartPools or higher
administrative privilege.

Add node pools to a tier

You can group available node pools into tiers.
A node pool can only be added to one tier at a time. If no node pools are listed as available, they already belong to other tiers.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools page displays two groups: Tiers and pools and Compatibilities
2. In the Tiers and pools area, click x in the Action column of the tier to add the node pool to.
3. In the View Tier Details page, click Edit Tier.
The Edit Tier Details page is displayed.
4. In the Available Node Pools list, select a node pool and click Add.
The node pool moves to the Selected Node Pools for this Tier list.
5. Repeat step 4 for each node pool you intend to add. When all node pools have been added, click Save Changes.
A message informs you that the operation was successful. The View Tier Details page remains open.
6. Click Close.
The Tiers & Node Pools group now shows that the node pools are part of the tier.

Change the name or requested protection of a node pool

You can change the name or the requested protection of a node pool.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
2. In the Tiers & Node Pools group, click the name of the node pool that you want to modify.
The Node Pools Details page appears.
3. Enter a new name for the node pool, or specify a new requested protection level from the list, or do both.
A node pool name must start with a letter or an underscore character. A node pool name can only contain letters, numbers,
hyphens, underscores, or periods.

4. Click Save Changes.

Create a node class compatibility

OneFS automatically adds a new node of the same equivalence class to an existing node pool. For new nodes that are not
equivalence-class, you can create a node class compatibility to add these nodes to an existing node pool.
The following compatibilities are currently supported: S200/S210, X200/X210, X400/X410, and NL400/NL410. For example,
if you have a node pool made up of three or more S200 nodes, you can create a compatibility so that new S210 nodes are
automatically added to the S200 node pool.
NOTE: New nodes must have compatible RAM and the same drive configurations as their older counterparts to be
provisioned into existing node pools. If drive configurations are not the same because of SSD capacity or SSD count
differences, you can create SSD compatibilities, as well.
1. Select File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two lists: Tiers & Node Pools and Compatibilities.

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2. Click Create a compatibility.
The Create a Compatibility dialog box displays a drop-down list of compatibility types.
3. From the Compatibility Type list, select Node Class.
Two additional drop-down lists are added, First Node Class and Second Node Class.
4. In the First Node Class list, accept the current selection, or make a new selection.
5. In the Second Node Class list, accept the current selection, or make a new selection.
6. Click Create Compatibility.
A Confirm Create Compatibility dialog box appears, with one or more check boxes that you must select before
proceeding. The check boxes describe the results of the operation.
7. Select all check boxes, and then click Confirm.
The node class compatibility is created, and is also described in the Compatibilities list. For example, a message such as "The
S200 Node Class is now considered compatible with the S210 Node Class" is displayed. The result of the new compatibility
appears in the Tiers & Node Pools list. If the new nodes are node-class compatible, but remain unprovisioned, you still need
to create an SSD compatibility for the new nodes. If L3 cache is disabled on the targeted node pool, the new nodes remain
unprovisioned, and an error message is generated.

Merge compatible node pools

You can create a node class compatibility to merge multiple compatible node pools. Larger node pools, up to 20 nodes, enable
OneFS to protect data more efficiently, therefore providing more storage space for new data.
For example, if you have six S200 nodes in one node pool and three S210 nodes in a second node pool, you can create a
compatibility to merge the two node pools into one nine-node pool.
NOTE: Newer node types typically have better performance specifications than older node types, so merging them with
older node types can reduce overall performance. Also, when two node pools are merged, OneFS restripes the data, which
can take considerable time, depending on the size of your data set.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two lists: Tiers & Node Pools and Compatibilities.
2. Click Create a compatibility.
The Create a Compatibility dialog box displays a drop-down list of compatibility types.
3. From the Compatibility Type list, select Node Class.
Two additional drop-down lists are added, First Node Class and Second Node Class.
4. In the First Node Class list, accept the current selection, or make a new selection.
5. In the Second Node Class list, accept the current selection, or make a new selection.
6. Click Create Compatibility.
A Confirm Create Compatibility dialog box appears, with one or more check boxes that you must select before
proceeding. The check boxes describe the results of the operation.
7. Select all check boxes, and then click Confirm.
The node class compatibility is created, and is also described in the Compatibilities list. For example, a message such as "The
S200 Node Class is now considered compatible with the S210 Node Class" is displayed. The result of the new compatibility
appears in the Tiers & Node Pools list. If compatibility creation succeeds, but the node pools are not merged, you probably
need to create an SSD compatibility between the two node pools. If compatibility creation fails with an error message, L3 cache
is disabled on one or both of the node pools.

Delete a node class compatibility

You can delete a node class compatibility. As a result, any nodes that were provisioned to a node pool because of this
compatibility are removed from the node pool.
CAUTION: Deleting a node class compatibility could result in unintended consequences. For example, if you
delete a compatibility, and fewer than three compatible nodes are removed from the node pool, those nodes will
be removed from your cluster's available pool of storage. The next time the SmartPools job runs, data on those
nodes would be restriped elsewhere on the cluster, which could be a time-consuming process. If three or more
compatible nodes are removed from the node pool, these nodes will form their own node pool, and data will be
restriped. Any file pool policy pointing to the original node pool will now point to the node pool's tier, if one
existed, or, otherwise, to a new tier created by OneFS.

376 Storage Pools

1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two lists: Tiers & Node Pools and Compatibilities.
2. In the Compatibilities list, next to the compatibility that you want to delete, click Delete.
The Confirm Delete Compatibility dialog box appears with one or more check boxes that you must select before
proceeding.
3. Select all check boxes in the dialog box, and click Confirm.
The compatibility is deleted, and the new state of the affected nodes appears in the Tiers & Node Pools list.

Create an SSD compatibility

You can create SSD compatibilities both for capacity and count to enable new nodes to be provisioned to node pools with
different SSD specifications. SSD compatibilities can be created for the following node types: S200, S210, X200, X210, X400,
X410, NL400, and NL410.
For example, if you have a node pool made up of three S200 nodes with 100GB SSDs, and you install an S200 node with
an equal number of 200GB SSDs, the new S200 node is not autoprovisioned to the S200 node pool until you create an SSD
compatibility. If the nodes of the S200 node pool each have six SSDs, and the new S200 node has eight SSDs, you must also
create an SSD count compatibility to enable the new S200 node to be provisioned to the S200 node pool.
Similarly, if you have different generation nodes that are class-compatible, such as S200 and S210 nodes, you can create SSD
compatibilities between those node types.
1. Select File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two lists: Tiers & Node Pools and Compatibilities.
2. Click Create a compatibility.
The Create a Compatibility dialog box displays a drop-down list of compatibility types.
3. From the Compatibility Type list, select SSD.
An additional drop-down list, Node Class, is added.
4. In the Node Class list, accept the current selection, or make a new selection, as appropriate.
5. If appropriate, also select the SSD Count Compatibility check box.
6. Click Create Compatibility.
A Confirm Create Compatibility dialog box appears, with one or more check boxes that you must select before
proceeding. The check boxes describe the results of the operation.
7. Select all check boxes, and then click Confirm.
The SSD compatibility is created and is also described in the Compatibilities list. For example, a message such as "S200 and
S210 nodes are SSD compatible" is displayed. The result of the SSD compatibility appears in the Tiers & Node Pools list, as
well. If L3 cache is turned off on any node pools that would be affected by the SSD compatibility, the SSD compatibility is not
created, and an error message is generated. To correct the situation, turn on L3 cache for those node pools.

Delete an SSD compatibility

You can delete an SSD compatibility. If you do this, any nodes that are part of a node pool because of this compatibility are
removed from the node pool.
CAUTION: Deleting an SSD compatibility could result in unintended consequences. For example, if you delete
an SSD compatibility, and fewer than three compatible nodes are removed from a node pool as a result, these
nodes are removed from your cluster's available pool of storage. The next time the SmartPools job runs, data on
those nodes is restriped elsewhere on the cluster, which could be a time-consuming process. If three or more
compatible nodes are removed from the node pool, these nodes form their own node pool, but data is restriped.
Any file pool policy pointing to the original node pool points instead to the node pool's tier, if one existed, or,
otherwise, to a new tier created by OneFS.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two lists: Tiers & Node Pools and Compatibilities.
2. In the Compatibilities list, next to the SSD compatibility that you want to delete, click Delete.
The Confirm Delete Compatibility dialog box appears with one or more check boxes that you must select before
proceeding. The check boxes describe the result of the operation.
3. Select all check boxes in the dialog box, and click Confirm.

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The SSD compatibility is deleted, and the new state of the affected nodes appears in the Tiers & Node Pools list. For example,
a previously provisioned node is now unprovisioned.

Managing L3 cache from the web administration

interface
You can manage L3 cache globally or on specific node pools from the web administration interface. You must have the
SmartPools or higher administrative privilege. On HD400 nodes, L3 cache is turned on by default and cannot be turned off.

Set L3 cache as the default for node pools

You can set L3 cache as the default, so that when new node pools are created, L3 cache is enabled automatically.
L3 cache is only effective on nodes that include SSDs. If none of your clusters have SSD storage, there is no need to enable L3
cache as the default.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools Settings.
The Edit SmartPools Settings page appears.
2. Under Local Storage Settings, click Use SSDs as L3 Cache by default for new node pools.
3. Click Save Changes.
As you add new nodes with SSDs to your cluster, and OneFS designates new node pools, these node pools automatically have
L3 cache enabled. New node pools without SSDs do not have L3 cache enabled by default.

Set L3 cache on a specific node pool

You can turn on L3 cache for a specific node pool.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools page, showing a list of tiers and node pools, appears.
2. In the Tiers & Node Pools list, click View/Edit next to the target node pool.
The View Node Pool Details dialog box appears, showing the current settings of the node pool.
3. Click Edit.
The Edit Node Pool Details dialog box appears.
4. Click the Enable L3 cache check box.
The check box is grayed out for node pools that do not have SSDs, or for which the setting cannot be changed.
5. Click Save Changes.
The Confirm Change to L3 Cache Setting message box appears.
6. Click the Continue button.
The migration process to L3 cache begins and can take awhile, depending on the number and size of the SSDs in the node
pool. When the migration process is complete, the View Node Pool Details dialog box appears.
7. Click Close.

Restore SSDs to storage drives for a node pool

You can disable L3 cache for SSDs on a node pool and restore those SSDs to storage drives.
NOTE: On HD400 node pools, SSDs are only used for L3 cache, which is turned on by default and cannot be turned off. All
other node pools with SSDs for L3 cache can have their SSDs migrated back to storage drives.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
2. In the Tiers & Node Pools area of the SmartPools tab, select View/Edit next to the target node pool.
The View Node Pool Details dialog box appears, showing the current settings of the node pool.
3. Click Edit.
The Edit Node Pool Details dialog box appears.
4. Clear the Enable L3 cache check box.

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 The setting is grayed out for node pools without SSDs, or for which the setting cannot be changed.
5. Click Save Changes.
The Confirm Change to L3 Cache Setting message box appears.
6. Click Continue.
The migration process to disable L3 cache begins and can take awhile, depending on the number and size of the SSDs in the
node pool. When the migration process is complete, the View Node Pool Details dialog box appears.
7. Click Close.

Managing tiers
You can move node pools into tiers to optimize file and storage management. Managing tiers requires the SmartPools or higher
administrative privilege.

Create a tier
You can group create a tier that contains one or more node pools. You can use the tier to store specific categories of files.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab appears with two sections: Tiers and pools and Compatibilities.
2. In the Tiers and pools section, click Create a tier.
3. In the Create a tier page that appears, enter a name for the tier.
4. For each node pool that you want to add to the tier, select a node pool from the Available Node Pools list, and click Add.
The node pool is moved into the Selected Node Pools for this Tier list.
5. Click Create Tier.
The Create a tier page closes, and the new tier is added to the Tiers and pools area. The node pools that you added
appear below the tier name.

Edit a tier
You can modify the name and change the node pools that are assigned to a tier.
A tier name can contain alphanumeric characters and underscores but cannot begin with a number.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two groups: Tiers and pools and Compatibilities.
2. In the Tiers and pools area, click the tier you want to edit.
3. In the Edit Tier Details page, modify the following settings as needed:

Option Description
Tier Name To change the name of the tier, select and type over the existing name.
Node Pool Selection To change the node pool selection, select a node pool, and click either Add or Remove.
4. When you have finished editing tier settings, click Submit.

Delete a tier
You can delete a tier that has no assigned node pools.
If you want to delete a tier that does have assigned node pools, you must first remove the node pools from the tier.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays two lists: Tiers and pools and Compatibilities.
2. In the Tiers and pools list, go to the Actions column of the tier that you want to delete and click the X.
A message box asks you to confirm or cancel the operation.
3. Click Delete to confirm the operation.

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The tier is removed from the Tiers and pools list.

Creating file pool policies

You can configure file pool policies to identify logical groups of files called file pools, and you can specify storage operations for
these files.
Before you can create file pool policies, you must activate a SmartPools license, and you must have the SmartPools or higher
administrative privilege.
File pool policies have two parts: file-matching criteria that define a file pool, and the actions to be applied to the file pool. You
can define file pools based on characteristics, such as file type, size, path, birth, change, and access timestamps, and combine
these criteria with Boolean operators (AND, OR).
In addition to file-matching criteria, you can identify a variety of actions to apply to the file pool. These actions include:
● Setting requested protection and data-access optimization parameters
● Identifying data and snapshot storage targets
● Defining data and snapshot SSD strategies
● Enabling or disabling SmartCache
For example, to free up disk space on your performance tier (S-series node pools), you could create a file pool policy to match
all files greater than 25 MB in size, which have not been accessed or modified for more than a month, and move them to your
archive tier (NL-series node pools).
You can configure and prioritize multiple file pool policies to optimize file storage for your particular work flows and cluster
configuration. When the SmartPools job runs, by default once a day, it applies file pool policies in priority order. When a file pool
matches the criteria defined in a policy, the actions in that policy are applied, and lower-priority custom policies are ignored for
the file pool.
After the list of custom file pool policies is traversed, if any of the actions are not applied to a file, the actions in the default file
pool policy are applied. In this way, the default file pool policy ensures that all actions apply to every file.
NOTE: You can reorder the file pool policy list at any time, but the default file pool policy is always last in the list of file pool
policies.
OneFS also provides customizable template policies that you can copy to make your own policies. These templates, however,
are only available from the OneFS web administration interface.

Create a file pool policy

You can create a file pool policy to define a specific file set and specify SmartPools actions to be applied to the matched files.
These SmartPools actions include moving files to certain tiers or node pools, changing the requested protection levels, and
optimizing write performance and data access.
CAUTION:

If existing file pool policies direct data to a specific storage pool, do not configure other file pool policies with
anywhere for the Data storage target option. Because the specified storage pool is included when you use
anywhere, target specific storage pools to avoid unexpected results.

1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
2. Click Create a File Pool Policy.
3. In the Create a File Pool Policy dialog box, enter a policy name and, optionally, a description.
4. Specify the files to be managed by the file pool policy.
To define the file pool, you can specify file matching criteria by combining IF, AND, and OR conditions. You can define these
conditions with a number of file attributes, such as name, path, type, size, and timestamp information.
5. Specify SmartPools actions to be applied to the selected file pool.
You can specify storage and I/O optimization settings to be applied.
6. Click Create Policy.
The file pool policy is created and applied when the next scheduled SmartPools system job runs. By default, this job runs once a
day, but you also have the option to start the job immediately.

380 Storage Pools

File-matching options for file pool policies
You can configure a file pool policy for files that match specific criteria.
The following file-matching options can be specified when you create or edit a file pool policy.
NOTE:

OneFS supports UNIX shell-style (glob) pattern matching for file name attributes and paths.
The following table lists the file attributes that you can use to define a file pool policy.

File attribute Specifies

Name Includes or excludes files based on the file name.

You can specify whether to include or exclude full or partial names that contain
specific text. Wildcard characters are allowed.

Path Includes or excludes files based on the file path.

You can specify whether to include or exclude full or partial paths that contain
specified text. You can also include the wildcard characters *, ?, and [ ].

File type Includes or excludes files based on one of the following file-system object types:
● File
● Directory
● Other

Size Includes or excludes files based on their size.

NOTE: File sizes are represented in multiples of 1024, not 1000.

Modified Includes or excludes files based on when the file was last modified.
In the web administration interface, you can specify a relative date and time,
such as "older than 2 weeks," or a specific date and time, such as "before
January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.

Created Includes or excludes files based on when the file was created.
In the web administration interface, you can specify a relative date and time,
such as "older than 2 weeks," or a specific date and time, such as "before
January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.

Metadata changed Includes or excludes files based on when the file metadata was last modified.
This option is available only if the global access-time-tracking option of the
cluster is enabled.
In the web administration interface, you can specify a relative date and time,
such as "older than 2 weeks," or a specific date and time, such as "before
January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.

Accessed Includes or excludes files based on when the file was last accessed based on the
following units of time:
In the web administration interface, you can specify a relative date and time,
such as "older than 2 weeks," or a specific date and time, such as "before
January 1, 2012." Time settings are based on a 24-hour clock.
NOTE: Because it affects performance, access time tracking as a file pool
policy criterion is disabled by default.

File attribute Includes or excludes files based on a custom user-defined attribute.

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Valid wildcard characters
You can combine wildcard characters with file-matching options to define a file pool policy.
OneFS supports UNIX shell-style (glob) pattern matching for file name attributes and paths.
The following table lists the valid wildcard characters that you can combine with file-matching options to define a file pool
policy.

Wildcard Description
* Matches any string in place of the asterisk.
For example, m* matches movies and m123.

[a-z] Matches any characters contained in the brackets, or a range of characters separated by a
hyphen. For example, b[aei]t matches bat, bet, and bit, and 1[4-7]2 matches 142,
152, 162, and 172.
You can exclude characters within brackets by following the first bracket with an exclamation
mark. For example, b[!ie] matches bat but not bit or bet.
You can match a bracket within a bracket if it is either the first or last character. For
example, [[c]at matches cat and [at.
You can match a hyphen within a bracket if it is either the first or last character. For
example, car[-s] matches cars and car-.

? Matches any character in place of the question mark. For example, t?p matches tap, tip,
and top.

SmartPools settings
SmartPools settings include directory protection, global namespace acceleration, L3 cache, virtual hot spare, spillover, requested
protection management, and I/O optimization management.

Settings in Web Admin Settings in CLI Description Notes

Increase directory --protect-directories-one- Increases the amount of This setting should be enabled
protection to a higher level-higher protection for directories at a (the default).
level than its contents higher level than the directories
When this setting is disabled,
and files that they contain, so
the directory that contains a file
that data that is not lost can still
pool is protected according to
be accessed.
your protection-level settings, but
When device failures result in the devices used to store the
data loss (for example, three directory and the file may not
drives or two nodes in a +2:1 be the same. There is potential
policy), enabling this setting to lose nodes with file data
ensures that intact data is still intact but not be able to access
accessible. the data because those nodes
contained the directory.
As an example, consider a cluster
that has a +2 default file
pool protection setting and no
additional file pool policies. OneFS
directories are always mirrored,
so they are stored at 3x, which is
the mirrored equivalent of the +2
default.
This configuration can sustain
a failure of two nodes before
data loss or inaccessibility. If this
setting is enabled, all directories

382 Storage Pools

Settings in Web Admin Settings in CLI Description Notes

are protected at 4x. If the cluster

experiences three node failures,
although individual files may be
inaccessible, the directory tree is
available and provides access to
files that are still accessible.
In addition, if another file pool
policy protects some files at
a higher level, these too are
accessible in the event of a
three-node failure.

Enable global --global-namespace- Specifies whether to allow per- This setting is available only if
namespace acceleration acceleration-enabled file metadata to use SSDs in the 20 percent or more of the nodes
node pool. in the cluster contain SSDs and
● When disabled, restricts per- at least 1.5 percent of the total
file metadata to the storage cluster storage is SSD-based.
pool policy of the file, except If nodes are added to or removed
in the case of spillover. This is from a cluster, and the SSD
the default setting. thresholds are no longer satisfied,
● When enabled, allows per-file GNA becomes inactive. GNA
metadata to use the SSDs in remains enabled, so that when
any node pool. the SSD thresholds are met again,
GNA is reactivated.
NOTE: Node pools with L3
cache enabled are effectively
invisible for GNA purposes.
All ratio calculations for GNA
are done exclusively for
node pools without L3 cache
enabled.

Use SSDs as L3 Cache --ssd-l3-cache-default- For node pools that include L3 cache is enabled by default
by default for new node enabled solid-state drives, deploy the on new node pools. When you
pools SSDs as L3 cache. L3 cache enable L3 cache on an existing
extends L2 cache and speeds up node pool, OneFS performs a
file system performance across migration, moving any existing
larger working file sets. data on the SSDs to other
locations on the cluster.
OneFS manages all cache
levels to provide optimal
data protection, availability, and
performance. In case of a power
failure, the data on L3 cache is
retained and still available after
power is restored.

Virtual Hot Spare --virtual-hot-spare-deny- Reserves a minimum amount of If you configure both the
writes space in the node pool that can minimum number of virtual drives
--virtual-hot-spare-hide- be used for data repair in the and a minimum percentage of
spare event of a drive failure. total disk space when you
configure reserved VHS space,
--virtual-hot-spare-limit- To reserve disk space for use as
the enforced minimum value
drives a virtual hot spare, select from
satisfies both requirements.
the following options:
--virtual-hot-spare-limit- If this setting is enabled and
percent ● Ignore reserved disk space
Deny new data writes is
when calculating available
disabled, it is possible for the file
free space. Subtracts the
system utilization to be reported
space reserved for the virtual
at more than 100%.

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Settings in Web Admin Settings in CLI Description Notes
hot spare when calculating
available free space.
● Deny data writes to
reserved disk space.
Prevents write operations
from using reserved disk
space.
● VHS Space Reserved. You
can reserve a minimum
number of virtual drives
(1-4), as well as a minimum
percentage of total disk space
(0-20%).

Enable global spillover --spillover-enabled Specifies how to handle write ● When enabled, redirects write
operations to a node pool that is operations from a node pool
not writable. that is not writable either
to another node pool or
anywhere on the cluster (the
default).
● When disabled, returns a
disk space error for write
operations to a node pool that
is not writable.
Spillover Data Target --spillover-target Specifies another storage pool to When spillover is enabled, but it
target when a storage pool is not is important that data writes do
--spillover-anywhere
writable. not fail, select anywhere for the
Spillover Data Target setting,
even if file pool policies send data
to specific pools.

Manage protection --automatically-manage- When this setting is enabled, When Apply to files with
settings protection SmartPools manages requested manually-managed protection
protection levels automatically. is enabled, overwrites any
protection settings that were
configured through File System
Explorer or the command-line
interface.

Manage I/O --automatically-manage- When enabled, uses SmartPools When Apply to files
optimization settings io-optimization technology to manage I/O with manually-managed I/O
optimization. optimization settings is
enabled, overwrites any I/O
optimization settings that were
configured through File System
Explorer or the command-line
interface

None --ssd-qab-mirrors Either one mirror or all mirrors for Improve quota accounting
the quota account block (QAB) performance by placing all QAB
are stored on SSDs mirrors on SSDs for faster I/O.
By default, only one QAB mirror is
stored on SSD.
None --ssd-system-btree- Either one mirror or all mirrors for Increase file system performance
mirrors the system B-tree are stored on by placing all system B-tree
SSDs mirrors on SSDs for faster
access. Otherwise only one
system B-tree mirror is stored on
SSD.

384 Storage Pools

Settings in Web Admin Settings in CLI Description Notes
None --ssd-system-delta- Either one mirror or all mirrors for Increase file system performance
mirrors the system delta are stored on by placing all system delta mirrors
SSDs on SSDs for faster access.
Otherwise only one system delta
mirror is stored on SSD.

Managing file pool policies

You can modify, reorder, copy, and remove custom file pool policies. Although you can modify the default file pool policy, you
cannot reorder or remove it.
To manage file pool policies, you can perform the following tasks:
● Modify file pool policies
● Modify the default file pool policy
● Copy file pool policies
● Use a file pool policy template
● Reorder file pool policies
● Delete file pool policies

Configure default file pool protection settings

You can configure default file pool protection settings. The default settings are applied to any file that is not covered by another
file pool policy.
CAUTION: If existing file pool policies direct data to a specific storage pool, do not add or modify a file pool
policy to the anywhere option for the Data storage target option. Target a specific file pool instead.

1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
2. In the File Pool Policies tab, next to Default Policy in the list, click View/Edit.
The View Default Policy Details dialog box is displayed.
3. Click Edit Policy.
The Edit Default Policy Details dialog box is displayed.
4. In the Apply SmartPools Actions to Selected Files section, choose the storage settings that you want to apply as the
default for Storage Target, Snapshot Storage Target, and Requested Protection.
5. Click Save Changes, and then click Close.
The next time the SmartPools job runs, the settings that you selected are applied to any file that is not covered by another file
pool policy.

Default file pool requested protection settings

Default protection settings include specifying the data storage target, snapshot storage target, requested protection, and SSD
strategy for files that are filtered by the default file pool policy.

Settings (Web Settings (CLI) Description Notes

Admin)
Storage Target --data-storage- Specifies the storage pool (node pool or tier) that NOTE: If GNA is not
target you want to target with this file pool policy. enabled and the storage
--data-ssd-strategy pool that you choose to
CAUTION:
target does not contain
If existing file pool policies direct data to SSDs, you cannot define
a specific storage pool, do not configure an SSD strategy.
other file pool policies with anywhere for
Use SSDs for metadata
the Data storage target option. Because
read acceleration writes
the specified storage pool is included when

Storage Pools 385

Settings (Web Settings (CLI) Description Notes
Admin)

you use anywhere, target specific storage both file data and
pools to avoid unintentional file storage metadata to HDD storage
locations. pools but adds an
additional SSD mirror if
Select one of the following options to define your possible to accelerate read
SSD strategy: performance. Uses HDDs
to provide reliability and
Use SSDs for Default. Write both file an extra metadata mirror
metadata read data and metadata to HDDs to SSDs, if available, to
acceleration and metadata to SSDs. improve read performance.
Accelerates metadata reads Recommended for most
only. Uses less SSD space uses.
than the Metadata read/
write acceleration setting. When you select Use SSDs
for metadata read/write
Use SSDs Write metadata to acceleration , the strategy
for metadata SSD pools. Uses uses SSDs, if available in
read/write significantly more SSD the storage target, for
acceleration space than Metadata performance and reliability.
read acceleration, but The extra mirror can be
accelerates metadata reads from a different storage
and writes. pool using GNA enabled or
from the same node pool.
Use SSDs for Use SSDs for both data Neither the Use SSDs for
data & metadata and metadata. Regardless of data & metadata strategy
whether global namespace nor the Use SSDs for data
acceleration is enabled, any & metadata strategy result
SSD blocks reside on the in the creation of additional
storage target if there is mirrors beyond the normal
room. requested protection. Both
file data and metadata
Avoid SSDs Write all associated file data are stored on SSDs if
and metadata to HDDs only. available within the file pool
CAUTION: policy. This option requires
a significant amount of SSD
Use this to free storage.
SSD space only
after consulting with
Dell Technologies
Support; the setting
can negatively affect
performance.

Snapshot storage --snapshot-storage- Specifies the storage pool that you want to target Notes for data storage
target target for snapshot storage with this file pool policy. The target apply to snapshot
--snapshot-ssd- settings are the same as those for data storage storage target
strategy target, but apply to snapshot data.

Requested --set-requested- Default of storage pool. Assign the default To change the requested
protection protection requested protection of the storage pool to the protection , select a new
filtered files. value from the list.
Specific level. Assign a specified requested
protection to the filtered files.

386 Storage Pools

Configure default I/O optimization settings
You can configure default I/O optimization settings.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
2. In the File Pool Policies tab, next to Default Policy in the list, click View/Edit.
The View Default Policy Details dialog box is displayed.
3. Click Edit Policy.
The Edit Default Policy Details dialog box is displayed.
4. In the Apply SmartPools Actions to Selected Files section, under I/O Optimization Settings,choose the settings that you
want to apply as the default for Write Performance and Data Access Pattern.
5. Click Save Changes, and then click Close.
The next time the SmartPools job runs, the settings that you selected are applied to any file that is not covered by another file
pool policy.

Default file pool I/O optimization settings

You can manage the I/O optimization settings that are used in the default file pool policy, which can include files with manually
managed attributes.
To allow SmartPools to overwrite optimization settings that were configured using File System Explorer or the isi set
command, select the Including files with manually-managed I/O optimization settings option in the Default Protection
Settings group. In the CLI, use the --automatically-manage-io-optimization option with the isi storagepool
settings modify command.

Setting (Web Setting (CLI) Description Notes

Admin)
Write Performance --enable-coalescer Enables or disables Enable SmartCache is the recommended setting for
SmartCache (also optimal write performance. With asynchronous writes,
referred to as the the PowerScale server buffers writes in memory.
coalescer). However, if you want to disable this buffering, we
recommend that you configure your applications to
use synchronous writes. If that is not possible, disable
SmartCache.
Data Access --data-access- Defines the optimization Files and directories use a concurrent access pattern
Pattern pattern settings for accessing by default. To optimize performance, select the
concurrent, streaming, or pattern dictated by your workflow. For example, a
random data types. workflow heavy in video editing should be set to
Optimize for streaming access. That workflow
would suffer if the data access pattern was set to
Optimize for random access.

Modify a file pool policy

You can modify a file pool policy.
CAUTION: If existing file pool policies direct data to a specific storage pool, do not configure other file pool
policies with anywhere for the Data storage target option. Because the specified storage pool is included when
you use anywhere, target specific storage pools to avoid unintentional file storage locations.

1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
2. In the File Pool Policies list, next to the policy you want to modify, click View/Edit.
The View File Pool Policy Details dialog box is displayed.
3. Click Edit Policy.
The Edit File Pool Policy Details dialog box is displayed.
4. Modify the policy settings, and then click Save Changes.
5. Click Close in the View File Pool Policy Details dialog box.

Storage Pools 387

Changes to the file pool policy are applied when the next SmartPools job runs. You can also start the SmartPools job manually to
execute the policy immediately.

Prioritize a file pool policy

You can change the priority of custom file pool policies. File pool policies are evaluated in descending order according to their
position in the file pool policies list.
By default, new policies are inserted immediately above the default file pool policy, which is always last in the list and therefore
lowest in priority. You can give a custom policy higher or lower priority by moving it up or down in the list.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
The File Pool Policies tab displays two lists: File Pool Policies and Policy Templates.
2. In the File Pool Policies list, in the Order column, click an arrow icon next to a policy to move it up or down in the priority
order.
3. Repeat the above step for each policy whose priority you want to change.
When the SmartPools system job runs, it processes the file pool policies in priority order. The default file pool policy is applied to
all files that are not matched by any other file pool policy.

Create a file pool policy from a template

You can create a new file pool policy from a policy template. The templates are pre-configured for typical work flows, such as
archiving older files or managing virtual machines (.vmdk files).
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
The File Pool Policies tab provides two lists: File Pool Policies and Policy Templates.
2. In the Policy Templates list, next to the template name that you want to use, click View/Use Template.
The View File Pool Policy Template Details dialog box opens.
3. Click Use Template.
The Create a File Pool Policy dialog box opens.
4. Required: Specify a policy name and description, and modify any of the policy settings.
5. Click Save Changes.
The new custom policy is added to the File Pool Policies list directly above the default policy.

Delete a file pool policy

You can delete any file pool policy except the default policy.
When you delete a file pool policy, its file pool is controlled either by another file pool policy or by the default policy the next time
the SmartPools job runs.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > File Pool Policies.
The File Pool Policies tab displays two lists: File Pool Policies and Policy Templates.
2. In the File Pool Policies list, next to the policy that you want to delete, click Delete.
3. In the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.
The file pool policy is removed from the File Pool Policies list.

Monitoring storage pools

You can access information on storage pool health and usage.
The following information is available:
● File pool policy health
● SmartPools health, including tiers, node pools, and subpools
● For each storage pool, percentage of HDD and SSD disk space usage
● SmartPools job status

388 Storage Pools

Monitor storage pools
You can view the status of file pool policies, SmartPools, and settings.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > Summary.
The Summary tab displays two areas: the Status list and the Local Storage Usage graph.
2. In the Status list, check the status of policies, SmartPools, and SmartPools settings.
3. Optional: If the status of an item is other than Good, you can click View Details to view and fix any issues.
4. In the Local Storage Usage area, view the statistics associated with each node pool.
If node pool usage is unbalanced, for example, you might want to consider whether to modify your file pool policies.

View subpools health

OneFS exposes unhealthy subpools in a list so that you can correct any issues.
A subpool is otherwise known as a disk pool, a collection of disks that is part of a node pool.
1. Click File System > Storage Pools > SmartPools.
The SmartPools tab displays three groupings: Tiers & Node Pools, Compatibilities, and Subpools Health.
2. In the Subpools Health area, review details of, and mitigate, any unhealthy subpools.

View the results of a SmartPools job

You can review detailed results from the last time the SmartPools job ran.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Reports.
The Jobs Reports tab displays a list of job reports.
2. In the Job Reports list, in the Type column, find the latest SmartPools job, and click View Details.
The View Job Report Details dialog box opens, displaying the job report.
3. Scroll through the report to see the results of each file pool policy.
4. Click Close in the View Job Report Details dialog box when you are finished.

Storage Pools 389

 27
Pool-based tree reporting in FSAnalyze
(FSA)
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• FSAnalyze (FSA)
• Pool-based tree reporting in FSAnalyze (FSA)

FSAnalyze (FSA)
The FSAnalyze job in OneFS gathers file system analytic information.
The FSAnalyze (FSA) job is used for namespace analysis. You can run FSA on demand or on a schedule through the command
line interface and PAPI. A successful FSA job produces analysis result. You may run FSA at least once a day.
Disk usage is a component of FSA that adds up the overall usage for any given directory. It gathers disk usage efficiently and
stores the results in a results database table, one row for every directory. FSA PAPI directory information endpoint exposes
stored result. The result for a directory may be compared with the result at a different time using the same PAPI endpoint. You
can run FSA on demand or on a schedule through the command line interface and PAPI. A successful FSA job produces analysis
result. You may run FSA at least once a day.
The FSA job runs in two modes. The SCAN mode scans the OneFS file system entirely. The INDEX mode is the default mode and
is more efficient. It relies on snapshots and change lists, updates, and walks a global metadata index.
FSA or IndexUpdate job is used to build the metadata index. The FSA job running in INDEX mode generates FSA Index.
IndexUpdate job generates Cluster Index. The disk usage component walks the metadata index.

Pool-based tree reporting in FSAnalyze (FSA)

You can store a subset of files remotely.
A storage policy can lead to a subset of files that are stored remotely. The metadata or namespace is stored on a PowerScale
cluster and the data is stored on a remote machine, hosted by a cloud storage provider. This mechanism helps you to monitor
the usage of cloud and on-premises resources through the cluster.
The pool-based tree reporting feature is used to classify directory usage by storage level. The disk usage component is extended
to add up information by node pool. A file that is stored in cloud is tagged with a special node pool. The database table is
extended to have a node pool column, and a given directory has usage that the node pool records. The report for directory pool
usage can be accessed using the Job ID and PAPI endpoints.
The feature has storage impact from the running FSA and IndexUpdate jobs, which are otherwise optional. Snapshots are taken
and kept for the duration while the FSA job runs. FSA and IndexUpdate jobs creates and manages metadata indexes to track file
system metadata. A new FSA database is created for every FSA result that is generated.
The disk usage table, the biggest table within FSA database grows linearly with the number of node pools.

390 Pool-based tree reporting in FSAnalyze (FSA)

 28
System jobs
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• System jobs overview
• System jobs library
• Job operation
• Job performance impact
• Job priorities
• Managing system jobs
• Managing impact policies
• Viewing job reports and statistics

System jobs overview

The most critical function of OneFS is maintaining the integrity of data on your PowerScale cluster. Other important system
maintenance functions include monitoring and optimizing performance, detecting and mitigating drive and node failures, and
freeing up available space.
Maintenance functions use system resources and can take hours to run. This section describes the system maintenance
functions, called jobs, that are managed by the Job Engine. Jobs run in the background.
NOTE: Job Engine does not manage all maintenance function jobs: system components such as SyncIQ and CloudPools
manage some maintenance functions. For example, SyncIQ creates jobs to synchronize source and target content, and
CloudPools creates jobs to upload and download data to and from the cloud.
The time that it takes for a job to run can vary depending on several factors, including:
● Other system jobs that are running.
● Other processes that are taking up CPU and I/O cycles while the job is running.
● The configuration of your cluster
● The size of your dataset
● How long since the last iteration of the job was run.
It is recommended that you have no more than three jobs running simultaneously.
Job Engine evaluates jobs to enable higher priority jobs and administrator tasks to proceed. Job evaluation includes:
● Ensuring that jobs that have the same exclusion sets do not run simultaneously.
● Running jobs at different priority and impact levels
● Temporarily suspending jobs (with no loss of progress)
● How balanced your diskpools are
● How much free space is left in your cluster
If a power failure occurs, the Job Engine checkpoint system resumes jobs as close as possible to the point at which they were
interrupted. The checkpoint system monitors the tasks in the current job phase until they are completed. When the cluster is
back up and available, Job Engine resumes the job phase from the last checkpoint.
As system administrator, through the Job Engine service, you can monitor, schedule, run, terminate, and apply other controls
to system maintenance jobs. The Job Engine provides statistics and reporting tools that you can use to determine how long
different system jobs take to run in your OneFS environment.

NOTE: To initiate any Job Engine tasks, you must have the role of SystemAdmin in the OneFS system.

System jobs 391

System jobs library
OneFS contains a library of system jobs that run in the background to help maintain your PowerScale cluster.
By default, system jobs are categorized as either manual or scheduled. You can run any job manually, and you can create a
schedule for most jobs according to your workflow. Some jobs do not accept a schedule. Typically such jobs have mandatory
input arguments, such as the Treedelete job. In addition, OneFS starts some jobs automatically when particular system
conditions arise. For example, FlexProtect or FlexProtectLin start when a drive is smartfailed and there is no down device,
to allow the job to re-protect the data.
The lower the priority value, the higher the job priority. For example, a job with priority value 1 has higher priority than a job with
priority value 2 or higher.
The default protection, +2:+1, enables all jobs to run during a scan if there is no more than one failed device in each disk pool.
(FlexProtect ad FlexProtectLin continue to run even if there are failed devices.) OneFS does not check file protection. If you
have files with no protection setting, the job can fail.

Job name Description Exclusion Impact Priority Operation

Set Policy
AutoBalance Rebalances disk space usage in a disk pool. Restripe Low 4 Manual
AutoBalanceLin OneFS checks the
jobs.common.lin_based_jobs setting
to determine whether to run AutoBalance
(FALSE)or AutoBalanceLin (TRUE).
JobEngine starts a rebalance job if there is
an imbalance of 5% of more between any
two drives.
If MultiScan is enabled, AutoBalance or
AutoBalanceLin are run as part of MultiScan,
or automatically by the system when a
device joins (or rejoins) the cluster.
If none of these jobs are enabled, no
rebalancing is done.
AutoBalance is most efficient in clusters
that contain only hard disk drives (HDDs).
AutoBalanceLin is most efficient in clusters
when file system metadata is stored on solid
state drives (SSDs).
AVScan Performs an antivirus scan on all files using None Low 6 Manual
an external antivirus server, such as a
CAVA antivirus server. Scans are scheduled
independently by the AV system or run
manually.
ChangelistCreate Creates a list of changes between two None Low 5 Manual
snapshots with matching root paths. You
can specify these snapshots from the CLI.
CloudPoolsLin Performs a LIN-based scan for files to be None Low 6 Manual
managed by CloudPools. If a CloudPools
policy matches a given LIN, it either archives
or recalls the cloud files.
CloudPoolsTreewalk Performs a treewalk scan on a given file None Low 6 Manual
path to identify files to be managed by
CloudPools.
Collect Reclaims free space from previously Mark Low 4 Manual
unavailable nodes or drives. Collect is a
"mark and sweep" garbage collector: it
marks valid blocks in the first two phases
of its run, then reclaims all blocks that are

392 System jobs

Job name Description Exclusion Impact Priority Operation
Set Policy
flagged in-use but not marked. Runs as part
of MultiScan, or automatically by the system
when a device joins (or rejoins) the cluster.
ComplianceStoreDelete Scan for, and unlink, expired files in None Low 6 Scheduled
compliance stores. By default, runs on the
second Saturday of each month at 12am.
Can also be run manually.
Dedupe* Scans a directory for redundant data blocks Dedupe Low 4 Manual
and deduplicates all redundant data stored in
Restripe
the directory. Available only if you activate a
SmartDedupe license.
DedupeAssessment Scans a directory for redundant data blocks Dedupe Low 6 Manual
and reports an estimate of the amount of
Restripe
space that could be saved by deduplicating
the directory.
DomainMark Associates a path, and the contents of that None Low 5 Manual
path, with a domain.
DomainTag Performs policy domain updates. Restripe Low 6 Manual
FlexProtect Scan the file system after a device failure to Restripe Medium 1 Manual
ensure that all files remain protected.
FlexProtectLin
OneFS checks the
jobs.common.lin_based_jobs setting
to determine whether to run FlexProtect or
FlexProtectLin.
FlexProtect and FlexProtectLin continue to
run even if there are failed devices.
Depending on the size of your data set, this
process can last for an extended period. The
cluster is said to be in a degraded state until
FlexProtect (or FlexProtectLin) finishes its
work. If you notice that other system jobs
cannot be started or have been paused, you
can use the isi job status command
to see if a "Cluster Is Degraded" message
appears.
FlexProtect is most efficient on clusters
that contain only HDDs. FlexProtectLin is
most efficient when file system metadata is
stored on SSDs.
NOTE: Unlike HDDs and SSDs that
are used for storage, when an SSD
used for L3 cache fails, the drive state
should immediately change to REPLACE
without a FlexProtect job running. An
SSD drive used for L3 cache contains
only cache data that does not have to
be protected by FlexProtect. After the
drive state changes to REPLACE, you
can pull and replace the failed SSD.

FSAnalyze* Gathers and reports information about all None Low 1 Scheduled
files and directories beneath the /ifs path.
This job requires you to activate an InsightIQ
license. Reports from this job are used by

System jobs 393

Job name Description Exclusion Impact Priority Operation
Set Policy
InsightIQ users for system analysis purposes.
For more information, see the PowerScale
InsightIQ User Guide.
IntegrityScan Verifies file system integrity. Mark Medium 1 Manual
MediaScan Locates and clears media-level errors from Restripe Low 8 Scheduled
disks to ensure that all data remains
protected.
This job is only useful on HDD drives. If the
cluster is all flash, you can disable this job.
This job is scheduled to run every 1st
Saturday of every month at 12 a.m.

MultiScan Performs the work of the AutoBalanceLin Restripe Low 4 Manual

and Collect jobs. Runs automatically on
Mark
group changes, including storage changes.
Multiscan runs only if there is any
unbalanced diskpool or if it determines that
a drive has been down for a long enough
period that running the Collect process to
reclaim free space is worthwhile.
PermissionRepair Uses a template file or directory as the basis None Low 5 Manual
for permissions to set on a target file or
directory. The target directory must always
be subordinate to the /ifs path. This job
must be manually started.
QuotaScan* Updates quota accounting for domains None Low 6 Manual
created on an existing file tree. Available
only if you activate a SmartQuotas license.
This job should be run manually in off-hours
after setting up all quotas, and whenever
setting up new quotas.
SetProtectPlus Applies a default file policy across the Restripe Low 6 Manual
cluster. Runs only if a SmartPools license is
not active.
ShadowStoreDelete Frees up space that is associated with None Low 2 Scheduled
shadow stores. Shadow stores are hidden
files that are referenced by cloned and
deduplicated files.
ShadowStoreProtect Protects shadow stores that are referenced Restripe Low 6 Scheduled
by a logical i-node (LIN) with a higher level
of protection.
SmartPools* Enforces SmartPools file pool policies. Restripe Low 6 Scheduled
Available only if you activate a SmartPools
license. This job runs on a regularly
scheduled basis, and can also be started
by the system when a change is made
(for example, creating a compatibility that
merges node pools).
SmartPoolsTree* Enforce SmartPools file policies on a Restripe Medium 5 Manual
subtree. Available only if you activate a
SmartPools license.
SnapRevert Reverts an entire snapshot back to head. None Low 5 Manual

394 System jobs

Job name Description Exclusion Impact Priority Operation
Set Policy
SnapshotDelete Creates free space associated with deleted None Medium 2 Manual
snapshots. Triggered by the system when
you mark snapshots for deletion.
TreeDelete Deletes a specified file path in the /ifs None Medium 4 Manual
directory. TreeDelete is equivalent to rm
-rf but scales cluster-wide.

Undedupe Undedupe undoes the work that the dedupe Dedupe Medium 6 Manual
job performed, potentially increasing disk
Restripe
space usage.
Upgrade Upgrades the file system after a software Restripe Medium 3 Manual
version upgrade.
NOTE: The Upgrade job should be
run only when you are updating your
cluster with a major software version.
For complete information, see the
PowerScale OneFS Upgrade Planning
and Process Guide.

WormQueue Processes the WORM queue, which tracks None Low 6 Scheduled
the commit times for WORM files. After
a file is committed to WORM state, it is
removed from the queue.
* Available only if you activate an additional license

Job operation
OneFS includes system maintenance jobs that run to ensure that your PowerScale cluster performs at peak health.
Through the Job Engine, OneFS runs a subset of these jobs automatically, as needed, to:
● Ensure file and data integrity.
● Check for and mitigate drive and node failures.
● Optimize free space.
For other jobs, such as Dedupe, you can use Job Engine to start them manually or schedule them to run automatically at regular
intervals. Job Engine will not start a scheduled job if the job is currently running. The scheduled job starts after the running
instance finishes.
The Job Engine runs system maintenance jobs in the background and prevents jobs within the same classification (exclusion set)
from running simultaneously. Two exclusion sets are enforced: restripe and mark.
Restripe job types are:
● AutoBalance
● AutoBalanceLin
● FlexProtect
● FlexProtectLin
● MediaScan
● MultiScan
● SetProtectPlus
● SmartPools
Mark job types are:
● Collect
● IntegrityScan
● MultiScan
MultiScan is a member of both the restripe and mark exclusion sets. You cannot change the exclusion set parameter for a job
type.

System jobs 395

The Job Engine is sensitive to job priority. It is recommended that you have no more than three jobs of any priority running
simultaneously. Job priority is denoted as 1 through 10, with 1 being the highest and 10 being the lowest. The system uses job
priority when there is a conflict among running or queued jobs. For example, suppose that you manually start a job that has a
higher priority than three other jobs that are already running. Job Engine pauses the lowest-priority active job, runs the new job,
then restarts the older job at the point at which it was paused. Or, suppose that you start a job within the restripe exclusion set,
and another restripe job is already running. The system uses priority to determine which job should run (or remain running) and
which job should be paused (or remain paused).
Other job parameters determine whether jobs are enabled, their performance impact, and schedule. As system administrator,
you can accept the job defaults or adjust these parameters (except for exclusion set) based on your requirements.
When a job starts, the Job Engine distributes its tasks across the nodes of your cluster. At any given time, one task belongs
to one node. Multiple nodes do not share the work of one task. One node acts as job coordinator. The job coordinator tracks
the tasks in progress. It works with the other nodes to load-balance the work according to the impact of the current job
as determined by its policy: requested or configured. This distribution ensures that the tasks run in parallel and the load is
distributed throughout the cluster.
A task is complete when there are no more items to perform for that task. Each node reports its task status to the job engine
coordinator after the task is complete. The job engine coordinator merges the task results into the job results, updates the
progress of the job, and stops tracking this task. When there are no more tasks to track, the phase is complete.
Checkpoints are taken periodically: when a job sends results or when the job is paused. The default checkpoint interval is 30
seconds. Some jobs request checkpoints at points of significant progress as well. If there is a power outage or if a job is paused,
the job can be restarted from the point at which it was interrupted. This is important because some jobs can take hours or even
days to run and can use considerable system resources.

Related references
System jobs library

Job performance impact

The Job Engine service uses impact policies to monitor the impact of maintenance jobs on system performance. You can
manage the impact policies to determine when a job can run and the system resources that it consumes.
Job Engine monitors maintenance jobs to ensure that they do not interfere with regular cluster I/O activity or system
administration tasks. Job Engine provides default impact policies that you can use but not modify, as shown in the following
table.

Impact policy Allowed to run Resource consumption

LOW Any time of day. Low

MEDIUM Any time of day. Medium

HIGH Any time of day. High

OFF_HOURS Outside of business hours. Low

Business hours are defined as 9AM
to 5PM, Monday through Friday.
OFF_HOURS is paused during
business hours.

If your workflow requires an impact policy different from the defaults, you can create a custom policy with new settings.
Jobs with a low impact policy have the least impact on available CPU and disk I/O resources. Jobs with a high impact policy
have a significant impact. Job Engine limits the number of tasks that can process in parallel according to the impact policy.
However, if the impact of a job is under the impact limits, Job Engine can increase the number of tasks that are in process.
CAUTION: Job Engine can use more CPU and I/O even if doing so delays other system activities. Requesting a
HIGH impact for a job can be disruptive to the cluster and can affect the client connection.

Related concepts
Managing impact policies

396 System jobs

Job priorities
Job priorities determine the precedence of a job when more than the maximum number of jobs attempt to run simultaneously.
The Job Engine assigns a priority value from 1 to 10 to every job, with 1 the most important and 10 the least important.
You can configure the maximum number of jobs that can run simultaneously. It is recommended that you run no more than
three jobs simultaneously. If more than the configured maximum number of jobs of different exclusion sets attempt to run
simultaneously, Job Engine manages priorities as follows:
● Suppose that the maximum number of jobs are running and a higher-priority job is queued. Job Engine pauses the job with
the lowest priority to allow the higher-priority job to run. Job Engine automatically resumes the paused job when one of the
other jobs completes.
● Suppose that fewer than the maximum number of jobs are running when a higher-priority job is queued. If a lower-priority job
has an exclusion set that overlaps the exclusion set of the new, higher-priority job, Job Engine pauses the lower-priority job
to allow the higher-priority job to run.
● In the case of a tie, Job Engine will continue running the job that is already running.

Managing system jobs

The Job Engine enables you to control periodic system maintenance tasks that ensure OneFS file system stability and integrity.
As maintenance jobs run, Job Engine ensures that jobs remain within specified impact settings for resource usage and impact
to other processes. However, it's possible to configure impact settings that enable the job to use resources to the point of
affecting performance.
As system administrator, you can tailor these jobs to the specific workflow of your PowerScale cluster. You can view active jobs
and job history, modify job settings, and start, pause, resume, cancel, and update job instances.
You manage system jobs from the Cluster management > Job operations tab or using the isi job CLI commands. For general
information about the isi job commands, see the OneFS CLI Adminsitration Guide. For details about isi job subcommands
and syntax, see the OneFS CLI Command Reference.

View active jobs

If you are noticing slower system response while performing administrative tasks, you can view jobs that are currently running
on your PowerScale cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, view status information about all currently running jobs, job settings, and progress details.
a. You can perform bulk actions on the active jobs by selecting the Status check box, then selecting an action from the
Select a bulk action drop-down list.

Related references
System jobs library

View job history

If you want to check the last time that a critical job ran, you can view recent activity for a specific job, or for all jobs.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Reports.
The Job Reports table displays a chronological list of the job events that have occurred on the cluster. Event information
includes the time that the event occurred, the job responsible for the event, and event results.
2. Filter reports by job type by selecting the job from the Filter by Job Type drop-down list.
3. Click View Details next to a job name to view recent events for only that job.
Recent events for the job appear in the View Job Report Details window, and include information such as start time,
duration, and whether the job was successful.

System jobs 397

Related references
System jobs library

Start a job
By default, only some system maintenance jobs are scheduled to run automatically. However, you can start any of the jobs
manually at any time.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types list, locate the job that you want to start, and then click Start Job.
The Start a Job dialog box appears.
3. Provide the details for the job, then click Start Job.

Related references
System jobs library

Pause a job
You can pause a job temporarily to free up system resources.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, click More for the job that you want to pause.
3. Click Pause Running Job in the menu that appears.
The job remains paused until you resume it.

Related references
System jobs library

Resume a job
You can resume a paused job.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, click More for the job that you want to pause.
3. Click Resume Running Job in the menu that appears.
The job continues from the phase or task at which it was paused.

Related references
System jobs library

Cancel a job
If you want to free up system resources, or for any reason, you can permanently discontinue a running, paused, or waiting job.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, click More for the job that you want to cancel.
3. Click Cancel Running Job in the menu that appears.

Related references
System jobs library

398 System jobs

Update a job
You can change the priority and impact policy of a running, waiting, or paused job.
When you update a job, only the current instance of the job runs with the updated settings. The next instance of the job returns
to the default settings for that job.

NOTE: To change job settings permanently, see "Modify job type settings."

1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.

2. In the Active Jobs table, click View/Edit for the job that you want to update.
3. Required: In the View Active Job Details window, click Edit Job.
a. Select a new priority level from the Priority drop-down list.
b. Select an impact policy level from the Impact Policy drop-down list.
4. Click Save Changes.
When you update a running job, the job automatically resumes. When you update a paused or idle job, the job remains in that
state until you restart it.

Related references
System jobs library

Modify job type settings

You can customize system maintenance jobs for your administrative workflow by modifying the default priority level, impact
level, and schedule for a job type.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
2. In the Job Types table, locate the row for the policy you want to modify and click View / Edit.
The View Job Type Details window appears, displaying current default settings, schedule, current state, and recent
activity.
3. Click Edit Job Type. The Edit Job Type Details window appears.
4. Modify the details you want to change. You can modify the default priority, the default impact policy, whether the job is
enabled, and whether the job runs manually or on a schedule.
5. Click Scheduled to modify a job schedule, then select the schedule option from the drop-down list.
6. Click Save Changes.
The modifications are saved and applied to all instances of that job type. The results are shown in the View Job Type
Details window.
7. Click Close.

Related references
System jobs library

Managing impact policies

For system maintenance jobs that run through the Job Engine service, you can create and assign policies that help control how
jobs affect system performance.
As system administrator, you can create, copy, modify, and delete impact policies, and view their settings.

Related concepts
Job performance impact

System jobs 399

Create an impact policy
The Job Engine includes four impact policies, which you cannot modify or delete. However, you can create and configure new
impact policies.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Impact Policies.
2. Click Add an Impact Policy.
The Create Impact Policy window appears.
3. In the Name text field, type a name for the policy. This field is required.
4. Required: In the Description text field, type a comment about the impact policy.
Include information specific to the impact policy such as unique schedule parameters or logistical requirements that make the
impact policy necessary.

5. Click Add an Impact Policy Interval.

a. In the Add an Impact Policy Interval window, select the impact level and start and end times from the drop-down lists.
b. Click Add Impact Policy Interval.
The Add an Impact Policy Interval window disappears, and the settings you selected appear in the Impact Schedule
table.
6. Click Create Impact Policy.
Your copy of the impact policy is saved and is listed in alphabetical order in the Impact Policies table.

Related concepts
Job performance impact

Copy an impact policy

You can use a default impact policy as the template for a new policy by making and modifying a copy.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Impact Policies.
2. In the Impact Policies table, locate the row for the policy you want to copy and click More > Copy Impact Policy. The
Copy Impact Policy window appears.
3. In the Name field, type a name for the new policy.
4. In the Description text field, type a description for the new policy.
Include information specific to the impact policy such as unique schedule parameters or logistical requirements that make the
impact policy necessary.

5. Click Add an Impact Policy Interval.

a. In the Add an Impact Policy Interval window, select the impact level and start and end times from the drop-down lists.
b. Click Add Impact Policy Interval.
The Add an Impact Policy Interval window closes, and the settings you selected appear in the Impact Schedule table.
6. Click Copy Impact Policy.
The copy of the impact policy is saved and is listed in alphabetical order in the Impact Policies table.

Related concepts
Job performance impact

Modify an impact policy

You can change the name, description, and impact intervals of a custom impact policy.
You cannot modify the default impact policies, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, and OFF_HOURS. If you want to modify a policy, create
and modify a copy of a default policy.
1. Navigate to Cluster Management > Job Operations > Impact Policies.
2. In the Impact Policies table, click View / Edit for the policy you want to modify.
The Edit Impact Policy window appears.

400 System jobs

3. Click Edit Impact Policy, and modify one or all of the following:

Policy description a. In the Description field, type a new overview for the impact policy.
b. Click Submit.

Impact schedule a. In the Impact Schedule area, modify the schedule of the impact policy by adding, editing, or
deleting impact intervals.
b. Click Save Changes.

The modified impact policy is saved and listed in alphabetical order in the Impact Policies table.

Related concepts
Job performance impact

Delete an impact policy

You can delete impact policies that you have created.
You cannot delete default impact policies, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, and OFF_HOURS.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Impact Policies.
2. In the Impact Policies table, locate the custom impact policy that you want to delete, and then click More > Delete.
The Confirm Delete dialog box appears.
3. Click Delete.

Related concepts
Job performance impact

View impact policy settings

You can view the impact policy settings for any job.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Types.
The Job Types table is displayed.
2. If necessary, scroll through the Job Types table to find a specific job.
The impact policy settings for the job are shown in the Job Types table.

Related concepts
Job performance impact

Viewing job reports and statistics

You can generate reports for system jobs and view statistics to better determine the amounts of system resources being used.
Most system jobs controlled by the Job Engine run at a low priority and with a low impact policy, and generally do not have a
noticeable impact on cluster performance.
A few jobs, because of the critical functions they perform, run at a higher priority and with a medium impact policy. These jobs
include FlexProtect and FlexProtect Lin, IntegrityScan, SmartPoolsTree, SnapshotDelete, TreeDelete, Undedupe, and Upgrade.
As a system administrator, if you are concerned about the impact a system job might have on cluster performance, you can view
job statistics and reports. These tools enable you to view detailed information about job load, including CPU and memory usage
and I/O operations.

System jobs 401

View statistics for a job in progress
You can view statistics for a job in progress.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
You can view jobs that are running in the Active Jobs area.
2. Click the View/Edit option to the right of the job entry.
The View Active Jobs Details screen opens, where you can view statistics such as processed data, elapsed time, phase, and
progress, including an estimate of the time remaining for the job to complete.

View a report for a completed job

After a job finishes, you can view a report about the job.
A report for a job is not available until after the job is completed.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Reports.
The Job Reports page appears.
2. Locate the job whose report you want to view.
3. Click View Details.
The View Job Report Details screen appears, listing job statistics such as elapsed time, CPU and memory usage, and total
I/O operations.
4. When you are finished viewing the report, click Close.

402 System jobs

 29
Networking
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Networking overview
• About the internal network
• About the external network
• Configuring the internal network
• Managing IPv6
• Managing groupnets
• Managing external network subnets
• Managing IP address pools
• Managing SmartConnect Settings
• Managing network interface members
• Managing node provisioning rules
• Managing routing options
• Managing DNS cache settings
• Managing host-based firewalls
• Managing TCP ports

Networking overview
After you determine the topology of your network, you can set up and manage your internal and external networks.
There are two types of networks on a cluster:

Internal Generation 5 nodes communicate with each other using a high-speed, low latency InfiniBand network.
Generation 6 nodes support using InfiniBand or Ethernet for the internal network. PowerScale F200
and F600 nodes support only Ethernet as the backend network. You can optionally configure a second
InfiniBand network to enable failover for redundancy.
External Clients connect to the cluster through the external network with Ethernet. The PowerScale cluster
supports standard network communication protocols, including NFS, SMB, HDFS, HTTP, and FTP. The
cluster includes various external Ethernet connections, providing flexibility for a wide variety of network
configurations.

About the internal network

A cluster must connect to at least one high-speed, low-latency InfiniBand switch (Generation 5 and Generation 6 nodes) or
Ethernet (Generation 6 and PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes) for internal communications and data transfer. The connection
is also referred to as an internal network. The internal network is separate from the external network (Ethernet) by which users
access the cluster.
Upon initial configuration of your cluster, OneFS creates an initial internal network. The interface to the default internal network
is int-a. You can add a second internal network for redundancy and failover. Failover allows continuous connectivity during path
failures. The interface to the secondary internal network is int-b, which is referred to as int-b/failover in the web administration
interface.
CAUTION: Only PowerScale nodes should be connected to your internal network. Information exchanged on the
back-end network is not encrypted. Connecting anything other than PowerScale nodes to the internal network
creates a security risk.

Networking 403
Internal IP address ranges
The number of IP addresses assigned to the internal network determines how many nodes can be joined to the cluster.
When you initially configure the cluster, you specify one or more IP address ranges for the primary InfiniBand switch or Ethernet.
This range of addresses is used by the nodes to communicate with each other. It is recommended that you create a range of
addresses large enough to accommodate adding additional nodes to your cluster.
While all clusters will have, at minimum, one internal InfiniBand or Ethernet network (int-a), you can enable a second internal
network to support network failover (int-b/failover). You must assign at least one IP address range for the secondary network
and one range for failover.
If any IP address ranges defined during the initial configuration are too restrictive for the size of the internal network, you can
add ranges to the int-a network or int-b/failover networks, which might require a cluster restart. Other configuration changes,
such as deleting an IP address assigned to a node, might also require that the cluster be restarted.
NOTE: Generation 5 nodes support InfiniBand for the internal network. Generation 6 nodes support both InfiniBand and
Ethernet for the internal network. PowerScale F200 and F600 nodes support Ethernet for the internal network.

Internal network failover

You can configure an internal switch as a failover network to provide redundancy for intra-cluster communications.
In order to support an internal failover network, the int-a port on each node in the cluster must be physically connected to the
primary internal network switch, and the int-b port on each node must be connected to the other internal network switch.
After the ports are connected, you must configure two IP address ranges; an address range to support the int-b internal
interfaces, and an address range to support failover. The failover addresses enable seamless failover in the event that either the
int-a or int-b switches fail.

About the external network

You connect a client computer to the cluster through the external network. External network configuration is composed of
groupnets, subnets, IP address pools, and features node provisioning rules.
Groupnets are the configuration level for managing multiple tenants on your external network. DNS client settings, such as
nameservers and a DNS search list, are properties of the groupnet. Groupnets reside at the top tier of the networking hierarchy.
You can create one or more subnets within a groupnet.
Subnets simplify external (front-end) network management and provide flexibility in implementing and maintaining the cluster
network. You can create IP address pools within subnets to partition your network interfaces according to workflow or node
type.
The IP address pool of a subnet consists of one or more IP address ranges. IP address pools can be associated with network
interfaces on cluster nodes. Client connection settings are configured at the IP address pool level.
An initial external network subnet is created during the setup of your cluster with the following configuration:
● An initial groupnet called groupnet0 with the specified global, outbound DNS settings to the domain name server list and
DNS search list, if provided.
● An initial subnet called subnet0 with the specified netmask, gateway, and SmartConnect service address.
● An initial IP address pool called pool0 with the specified IP address range, the SmartConnect zone name, and the network
interface of the selected node as the only pool member.
● An initial node provisioning rule called rule0 that automatically assigns the first network interface for all newly added nodes
to pool0.
● Adds subnet0 to groupnet0.
● Adds pool0 to subnet0 and configures pool0 to use the virtual IP of subnet0 as its SmartConnect service address.
● If you use IPv6 values in the above fields, then IPv6 is enabled on the cluster.
● After initial configuration, you can enable or disable IPv6 on the command-line interface.

404 Networking
IPv6 support
OneFS supports both IPv4 and IPv6 address formats on a cluster. OneFS supports dual stack.
OneFS supports the USGv6 standard of IPv6 used by the US Government.
The following table describes distinctions between IPv4 and IPv6.

IPv4 IPv6
32-bit addresses 128-bit addresses
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP); Duplicate Address
Detection (DAD)
Router Advertisement

A subnet can use either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, but not both. You set the IP family when creating the subnet, and all IP address
pools that are assigned to the subnet must use the selected format.

Dual Stack
Dual stack means that a domain name can reference both IPv4 and IPv6 network pools.
You can configure one subnet to be IPv4 and another to be IPv6. If a pool in both subnets has the same sc-dns-zone, and the
sc-subnet references the same subnet (for example, they both reference the IPv4 subnet), that IPv4 subnet can now resolve
for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

Related concepts
Subnets

IPv6 default configuration

IPv6 is enabled or disabled according to the following rules.

● On new clusters that are installed with OneFS 9.5.0.0 and later:
○ If you use IPv6 configurations in the initial configuration wizard, IPv6 is enabled on the cluster. For example, if you
configure IPv6 external DNS servers, network pool IPs, SmartConnect service addresses, the wizard enables IPv6.
○ If you use only IPv4 configurations in the initial configuration wizard, IPv6 is disabled on the cluster. You can enable basic
IPv6 support at any time in the CLI using isi network external modify --ipv6-enabled true.
● On an existing OneFS cluster that has IPv6 enabled, an upgrade to OneFS 9.5.0.0 or later does not change the IPv6
configurations. In this case, IPv6 remains enabled.
IPv6 configuration options are disabled by default when you first enable IPv6 support. You can enable each option using the isi
network external modify command.

IPv6 configuration
Enable, disable, and configure options for IPv6 using the isi network external modify command.
The following IPv6 options are available for configuration in the command.

Table 26. IPv6 options in the isi network external modify command
Option Description
--ipv6-enabled Enables or disables front-end interfaces to support IPv6.
--ipv6-auto-config-enabled Sets whether OneFS discovers and applies network settings from the
IPv6 router advertisements (RAs).
--ipv6-generate-link-local Specifies whether OneFS generates IPv6 link-local addresses on the
front-end network interfaces.

Networking 405
Table 26. IPv6 options in the isi network external modify command (continued)
Option Description
--ipv6-dad Enables or disables IPv6 Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) globally on
OneFS. This option can set a global DAD timeout value. This global DAD
setting must be true to enable DAD on SSIPs or on network pools.
--ipv6-ssip-perform-dad Enables DAD on IPv6 SmartConnect Service IPs (SSIPs)
--ipv6-accept-redirects Controls whether OneFS processes ICMPv6 redirect messages.

You can also enable DAD on a network pool using the isi network pools modify or isi network pools create
commands.

Groupnets
Groupnets reside at the top tier of the networking hierarchy and are the configuration level for managing multiple tenants on
your external network. DNS client settings, such as nameservers and a DNS search list, are properties of the groupnet. You can
create a separate groupnet for each DNS namespace that you want to use to enable portions of the PowerScale cluster to have
different networking properties for name resolution. Each groupnet maintains its own DNS cache, which is enabled by default.
A groupnet is a container that includes subnets, IP address pools, and provisioning rules. Groupnets can contain one or more
subnets, and every subnet is assigned to a single groupnet. Each cluster contains a default groupnet named groupnet0 that
contains an initial subnet named subnet0, an initial IP address pool named pool0, and an initial provisioning rule named rule0.
Each groupnet is referenced by one or more access zones. When you create an access zone, you can specify a groupnet. If a
groupnet is not specified, the access zone will reference the default groupnet. The default System access zone is automatically
associated with the default groupnet. Authentication providers that communicate with an external server, such as Active
Directory and LDAP, must also reference a groupnet. You can specify the authentication provider with a specific groupnet;
otherwise, the provider will reference the default groupnet. You can only add an authentication provider to an access zone if
they are associated with the same groupnet. Client protocols such as SMB, NFS, HDFS, and Swift, are supported by groupnets
through their associated access zones.

Related concepts
Managing groupnets
DNS name resolution

DNS name resolution

You can designate up to three DNS servers per groupnet to handle DNS name resolution.
DNS servers must be configured as an IPv4 or IPv6 address. You can specify up to six DNS search suffixes per groupnet; the
suffixes settings are appended to domain names that are not fully qualified.
Additional DNS server settings at the groupnet level include enabling a DNS cache, enabling server-side search, and enabling
DNS resolution on a rotating basis.

Related tasks
Specify a SmartConnect service subnet

Subnets
Subnets are networking containers that enable you to sub-divide your network into smaller, logical IP networks.
On a cluster, subnets are created under a groupnet and each subnet contains one or more IP address pools. Both IPv4 and IPv6
addresses are supported on OneFS; however, a subnet cannot contain a combination of both. When you create a subnet, you
specify whether it supports IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
You can configure the following options when you create a subnet:
● Gateway servers that route outgoing packets and gateway priority.
● Maximum transmission unit (MTU) that network interfaces in the subnet will use for network communications.

406 Networking
● SmartConnect service address, which is the IP address on which the SmartConnect module listens for DNS requests on this
subnet.
● SmartConnect service name, which is displayed when you create or modify a subnet. The SmartConnect service name field
is an optional field to answer nameserver, Start of Authority, and other DNS queries.
● VLAN tagging to allow the cluster to participate in multiple virtual networks.
How you set up your external network subnets depends on your network topology. For example, in a basic network topology
where all client-node communication occurs through direct connections, only a single external subnet is required. In another
example, if you want clients to connect through both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, you must configure multiple subnets.

Related concepts
VLANs
Managing external network subnets
IPv6 support

VLANs
Virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging is an optional setting that enables a cluster to participate in multiple virtual networks.
You can partition a physical network into multiple broadcast domains, or virtual local area networks (VLANs). You can enable a
cluster to participate in a VLAN which allows multiple cluster subnet support without multiple network switches; one physical
switch enables multiple virtual subnets.
VLAN tagging inserts an ID into packet headers. The switch refers to the ID to identify from which VLAN the packet originated
and to which network interface a packet should be sent.

Related tasks
Enable or disable VLAN tagging

IP address pools
IP address pools are assigned to a subnet and consist of one or more IP address ranges. You can partition nodes and network
interfaces into logical IP address pools. IP address pools are also utilized when configuring SmartConnect DNS zones and client
connection management.
Each IP address pool belongs to a single subnet. Multiple pools for a single subnet are available only if you activate a
SmartConnect Advanced license.
The IP address ranges assigned to a pool must be unique and belong to the IP address family (IPv4 or IPv6) specified by the
subnet that contains the pool.
You can add network interfaces to IP address pools to associate address ranges with a node or a group of nodes. For example,
based on the network traffic that you expect, you might decide to establish one IP address pool for storage nodes and another
for accelerator nodes.
SmartConnect settings that manage DNS query responses and client connections are configured at the IP address pool level.

Related concepts
Managing IP address pools

Link aggregation
Link aggregation, also known as network interface card (NIC) aggregation, combines the network interfaces on a physical node
into a single, logical connection to provide improved network throughput.
You can add network interfaces to an IP address pool singly or as an aggregate. A link aggregation mode is selected on a
per-pool basis and applies to all aggregated network interfaces in the IP address pool. The link aggregation mode determines
how traffic is balanced and routed among aggregated network interfaces.

Related concepts
Managing network interface members

Networking 407
SmartConnect module
The SmartConnect module specifies how the cluster DNS server handles connection requests from clients and the policies that
assign IP addresses to network interfaces, including failover and rebalancing.
You can think of SmartConnect as a limited implementation of a custom DNS server. SmartConnect answers only for the
SmartConnect zone names or aliases that are configured on it. Settings and policies that are configured for SmartConnect are
applied per IP address pool.
NOTE: Enable gratuitous Address Resolution Protocol (gratuitous ARP, or GARP) on the network switch to ensure
consistent connectivity.
You can configure basic and advanced SmartConnect settings.

SmartConnect Basic
SmartConnect Basic is included with OneFS as a standard feature and does not require a license. SmartConnect Basic supports
the following:
● Specifying the DNS zone.
● Round-robin connection balancing method only
● Specifying a service subnet to answer DNS requests.
● Viewing the current status of nodes in a specified network pool.
SmartConnect Basic enables you to add two SmartConnect Service IP addresses to a subnet.
SmartConnect Basic has the following limitations to IP address pool configuration:
● You may only specify a static IP address allocation policy.
● You cannot specify an IP address failover policy.
● You cannot specify an IP address rebalance policy.
● You cannot create more than two IP address pools per network subnet.

SmartConnect Advanced
SmartConnect Advanced extends the settings available from SmartConnect Basic. It requires an active license. SmartConnect
Advanced supports the following settings:
● Round-robin, CPU utilization, connection counting, and throughput balancing methods
● Static and dynamic IP address allocation
SmartConnect Advance enables you to add a maximum of six SmartConnect Service IP addresses per subnet.
SmartConnect Advanced enables you to specify the following IP address pool configuration options:
● You can define an IP address failover policy for the IP address pool.
● You can define an IP address rebalance policy for the IP address pool.
● SmartConnect Advanced supports multiple IP address pools per external subnet to enable multiple DNS zones within a single
subnet.

Related concepts
Managing SmartConnect Settings

SmartConnect Multi-SSIP
OneFS supports defining more than one SmartConnect Service IP (SSIP) per subnet. Support for multiple SmartConnect
Service IPs (Multi-SSIP) ensures that client connections continue uninterrupted if an SSIP becomes unavailable.
The additional SSIPs provide fault tolerance and a failover mechanism to ensure continued load balancing of clients according to
the selected policy. Though the additional SSIPs are in place for failover, they are active and respond to DNS server requests.
The SmartConnect Basic license allows defining 2 SSIPs per subnet. The SmartConnect Advanced license allows defining up to
6 SSIPs per subnet.

408 Networking
 NOTE: SmartConnect Multi-SSIP is not an additional layer of load balancing for client connections: additional SSIPs only
provide redundancy and reduce failure points in the client connection sequence. Do not configure the site DNS server to
perform load balancing for the SSIPs. Allow OneFS to perform load balancing through the selected SmartConnect policy to
ensure effective load balancing.
Configure DNS servers for SSIP failover to ensure that the next SSIP is contacted only if the first SSIP connection times out.
If the SSIPs are not configured in a failover sequence, the SSIP load balancing policy resets each time a new SSIP is contacted.
The SSIPs function independently: they do not track the current distribution status of the other SSIPs.
Configuring IP addresses as failover-only addresses is not supported on all DNS servers. To support Multi-SSIP as a failover
only option, it is recommended that you use a DNS server that supports failover addresses. If a DNS server does not support
failover addresses, Multi-SSIP still provides advantages over a single SSIP. However, increasing the number of SSIPs may affect
SmartConnect's ability to load balance.
NOTE: If the DNS server does not support failover addresses, test Multi-SSIP in a lab environment that mimics the
production environment to confirm the impact on SmartConnect's load balancing for a specific workflow. Only after
confirming workflow impacts in a lab environment should you update a production cluster.

SmartConnect zones and aliases

Clients can connect to the cluster through a specific IP address or though a domain that represents an IP address pool.
SmartConnect zone aliases enable you to view all the DNS names that a cluster answers for. You create Service Principal
Name (SPN) records in Active Directory or in MIT Kerberos for the SmartConnect zone names, as a component of the machine
account of the cluster. To create the SPN records, use the CLI isi auth command after you add the zone alias, similar to the
following:

isi auth ads spn check --domain=<domain.com> --repair

You can configure a SmartConnect DNS zone name for each IP address pool. The zone name must be a fully qualified domain
name. Add a new name server (NS) record that references the SmartConnect service IP address in the existing authoritative
DNS zone that contains the cluster. Provide a zone delegation to the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the SmartConnect
zone in your DNS infrastructure.
If you have a SmartConnect Advanced license, you can also specify a list of alternate SmartConnect DNS zone names for the IP
address pool.
When a client connects to the cluster through a SmartConnect DNS zone:
● SmartConnect handles the incoming DNS requests on behalf of the IP address pool.
● The service subnet distributes incoming DNS requests according to the connection balancing policy of the pool.
NOTE: Using SmartConnect zone aliases is recommended for making clusters accessible using multiple domain names. Use
of CNAMES is not recommended.

Related tasks
Modify a SmartConnect DNS zone

DNS request handling

SmartConnect handles all incoming DNS requests on behalf of an IP address pool if a SmartConnect service subnet has been
associated with the pool.
The SmartConnect service subnet is an IP address pool setting. You can specify any subnet that has been configured with a
SmartConnect service IP address and references the same groupnet as the pool. You must have at least one subnet configured
with a SmartConnect service IP address in order to handle client DNS requests.
A SmartConnect service IP address should be used exclusively for answering DNS requests and cannot be an IP address that is
in any pool's IP address range. Client connections through the SmartConnect service IP address is not supported and result in
unexpected behavior or disconnection.
Once a SmartConnect service subnet has been associated with an IP address pool, the service subnet distributes incoming DNS
requests according to the pool's connection balancing policy. If a pool does not have a designated service subnet, incoming
DNS requests are answered by the subnet that contains the pool, provided that the subnet is configured with a SmartConnect
service IP address. Otherwise, the DNS requests are excluded.

Networking 409
 NOTE: SmartConnect requires that you add a new name server (NS) record that references the SmartConnect service IP
address in the existing authoritative DNS zone that contains the cluster. You must also provide a zone delegation to the
fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the SmartConnect zone.

Related tasks
Configure a SmartConnect service IP address
Suspend or resume a node

IP address allocation
The IP address allocation policy specifies how IP addresses in the pool are assigned to an available network interface.
You can specify whether to use static or dynamic allocation.

Static Assigns one IP address to each network interface added to the IP address pool, but does not guarantee
that all IP addresses are assigned.
Once assigned, the network interface keeps the IP address indefinitely, even if the network interface
becomes unavailable. To release the IP address, remove the network interface from the pool or remove it
from the node.
Without a license for SmartConnect Advanced, static is the only method available for IP address
allocation.
Dynamic Assigns IP addresses to each network interface added to the IP address pool until all IP addresses are
assigned. This guarantees a response when clients connect to any IP address in the pool.
If a network interface becomes unavailable, its IP addresses are automatically moved to other available
network interfaces in the pool as determined by the IP address failover policy.
This method is only available with a license for SmartConnect Advanced.

Related references
Supported IP allocation methods
Allocation recommendations based on file sharing protocols

Related tasks
Configure IP address allocation

IP address failover
When a network interface becomes unavailable, the IP address failover policy specifies how to handle the IP addresses that
were assigned to the network interface.
To define an IP address failover policy, you must have a license for SmartConnect Advanced, and the IP address allocation policy
must be set to dynamic. Dynamic IP allocation ensures that all of the IP addresses in the pool are assigned to available network
interfaces.
When a network interface becomes unavailable, the IP addresses that were assigned to it are redistributed to available
network interfaces according to the IP address failover policy. Subsequent client connections are directed to the new network
interfaces.
You can select one of the following connection balancing methods to determine how the IP address failover policy selects which
network interface receives a redistributed IP address:
● Round-robin
● Connection count
● Network throughput
● CPU usage

Related tasks
Configure an IP failover policy

410 Networking
Connection balancing
The connection balancing policy determines how the DNS server handles client connections to the cluster.
You can specify one of the following balancing methods:

Round-robin Selects the next available network interface on a rotating basis. This is the default method. Without a
SmartConnect license for advanced settings, this is the only method available for load balancing.
Connection count Determines the number of open TCP connections on each available network interface and selects the
network interface with the fewest client connections.
Network Determines the average throughput on each available network interface and selects the network interface
throughput with the lowest network interface load.
CPU usage Determines the average CPU utilization on each available network interface and selects the network
interface with lightest processor usage.

Related references
Supported connection balancing methods

Related tasks
Configure a connection balancing policy

IP address rebalancing
The IP address rebalance policy specifies when to redistribute IP addresses if one or more previously unavailable network
interfaces becomes available again.
To define an IP address rebalance policy, you must have a license for SmartConnect Advanced, and the IP address allocation
policy must be set to dynamic. Dynamic IP addresses allocation ensures that all of the IP addresses in the pool are assigned to
available network interfaces.
You can set rebalancing to occur manually or automatically:

Manual Does not redistribute IP addresses until you manually start the rebalancing process.
Upon rebalancing, IP addresses will be redistributed according to the connection balancing method
specified by the IP address failover policy defined for the IP address pool.
Automatic Automatically redistributes IP addresses according to the connection balancing method specified by the IP
address failover policy defined for the IP address pool.
Automatic rebalancing may also be triggered by changes to cluster nodes, network interfaces, or the
configuration of the external network.
NOTE: Rebalancing can disrupt client connections. Ensure the client workflow on the IP address pool
is appropriate for automatic rebalancing.

Related tasks
Manually rebalance IP addresses

SmartConnect diagnostics
You can view information about the status of the nodes in a network pool.
SmartConnect collects information about the status of nodes in network pools. Use the CLI command isi network pools
status <network pool id> to view whether each node in the network pool is operating optimally, needs attention, or is down.
The format of <network pool id> is [groupnet ID].subnetID.poolID.
The network pool status report displays summary information about the network pool and node status details:
● If all nodes are operating optimally, only summary information about the network pool displays.
● If some nodes are down or need attention, network pool summary and detailed information about the affected
node(s)displays.

Networking 411
Use the --show-all option to display network pool summary information and detailed information for all the nodes in the
network pool.

Node provisioning rules

Node provisioning rules specify how new nodes are configured when they are added to a cluster.
If the new node type matches the type defined in a rule, the network interfaces on the node are added to the subnet and the IP
address pool specified in the rule.
For example, you can create a node provisioning rule that configures new PowerScale storage nodes, and another rule that
configures new accelerator nodes.
OneFS automatically checks for multiple provisioning rules when new rules are added to ensure there are no conflicts.

Related concepts
Managing node provisioning rules

Routing options
OneFS supports source-based routing and static routes which allow for more granular control of the direction of outgoing client
traffic on the cluster.
If no routing options are defined, by default, outgoing client traffic on the cluster is routed through the default gateway, which
is the gateway with the lowest priority setting on the node. If traffic is being routed to a local subnet and does not need to route
through a gateway, the traffic will go directly out through an interface on that subnet.

Related concepts
Managing routing options

Source-based routing
Source-based routing (SBR) selects which gateway to direct outgoing client traffic through based on the source IP address in
each packet header.
When enabled, source-based routing automatically scans your network configuration to create client traffic rules. If you modify
your network configuration, for example, changing the IP address of a gateway server, source-based routing adjusts the rules.
Source-based routing is applied across the entire cluster and does not support the IPv6 protocol.
In the following example, you enable source-based routing on a PowerScale cluster that is connected to SubnetA and SubnetB.
Each subnet is configured with a SmartConnect zone and a gateway, also labeled A and B. When a client on SubnetA makes
a request to SmartConnect ZoneB, the response originates from ZoneB. The result is a ZoneB address as the source IP in the
packet header, and the response is routed through GatewayB. Without source-based routing, the default route is destination-
based, so the response is routed through GatewayA.
In another example, a client on SubnetC, which is not connected to the PowerScale cluster, makes a request to SmartConnect
ZoneA and ZoneB. The response from ZoneA is routed through GatewayA, and the response from ZoneB is routed through
GatewayB. In other words, the traffic is split between gateways. Without source-based routing, both responses are routed
through the same gateway.
Source-based routing is disabled by default. Enabling or disabling source-based routing goes into effect immediately. Packets
in transit continue on their original courses, and subsequent traffic is routed based on the status change. If the status of
source-based routing changes during transmission, transactions that are composed of multiple packets might be disrupted or
delayed.
In the event where there is more than one matching route, rules that are made from static routes are evaluated first. If a
static route matches, static routes are prioritized over source-based rules. When a static route is added, the matching static
route is found first and takes precedence over source-based routing routes. If both source-based routing and static routes are
configured, the static routes always take priority for traffic that matches the static routes.
Consider enabling source-based routing if you have a large network with a complex topology. For example, if your network is a
multitenant environment with several gateways, traffic is more efficiently distributed with source-based routing.

412 Networking
Related tasks
Enable or disable source-based routing

Static routing
A static route directs outgoing client traffic to a specified gateway based on the IP address of the client connection.
You configure static routes by IP address pool, and each route applies to all nodes that have network interfaces as IP address
pool members.
You might configure static routing in order to connect to networks that are unavailable through the default routes or if you have
a small network that only requires one or two routes.

Related tasks
Add or remove a static route

Host-based firewall
The OneFS host-based firewall controls inbound traffic on the front-end network. You can enable default global firewall policies
that provide basic protection on the OneFS default ports. You can create custom policies and custom rules that define a firewall
for your specific network management and security requirements.

Enable and manage the firewall

Use the command-line interface or the Web UI to enable and manage the firewall.
The host-based firewall is disabled by default. You can enable it using either of the following:
● In the CLI, the isi network firewall setttings modify --enabled=true command
● In the Web UI, the Cluster management > Firewall configuration > Settings page
NOTE: The STIG hardening profile enables the firewall on the cluster.

You can manage the firewall policies using either the command-line interface or the Web UI. In either interface, you can:
● Modify existing policies and create policies.
● Clone existing policies and edit the clones.
● Reset global policies to original installed defaults.
● Create and modify rules.
● Assign policies to subnets and network pools.
Firewall management requires the ISI_PRIV_FIREWALL privilege.
● The integrated SystemAdmin role is granted with the ISI_PRIV_FIREWALL write permission.
● The integrated AuditAdmin role is granted with ISI_PRIV_FIREWALL read permission.
NOTE: The firewall uses the FreeBSD ipfw kernel model, which is the same model that source-based routing (SBR)
uses. The two features use different partitions in the same ipfw table. You may enable and disable firewall and SBR
independently.

Firewall policies
The firewall consists of policies that you apply to specified subnets or network pools.
A policy is a collection of rules that filters inbound packets. A rule can filter packets on the protocol, source address, source
port, and destination port. Each rule defines an action to take when a packet matches the rule. Each policy also has a defined
default action. The available actions are:
● allow—Accept the packet.
● deny—Silently drop the packet.
● reject—Drop the packet and send an error code to the sender.

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To make a policy take effect, you associate the policy to one or more network pools or subnets. Use either the Web UI or the
isi network firewall policies modify command with the --add-pools or --add-subnets option.

Global policies
The firewall comes with predefined global policies. You can modify the global policies. You can reset the global policies back to
their original installed state.
The following table describes the global policies that are installed with OneFS.

Policy Summary
default_pools_policy Rules for the inbound default ports for TCP and UDP services in OneFS. For a list of default
ports, see the "Network exposure" section in the "Product and Subsystem Security" chapter of
the OneFS Security Configuration Guide.
default_subnets_policy Rules for:
● DNS port 53
● Rule for ICMP
● Rule for ICMP6

Custom policies
You can create custom policies. As a convenience, you can clone any policy and edit the clone to create a custom policy. You
have complete control over the rules in custom policies.

Firewall rules
Firewall rules filter incoming network packets and define specific actions to take based on source network, source port,
destination port, and protocol on the cluster.
The ordering of rules in a policy can make a difference in the outcome. Each rule in a policy has an integer ID. Rules are applied
to a packet by ascending ID. Filtering stops at the first match. In general, you should order rules from most restrictive to least
restrictive.
You can change the ordering of rules in a policy by editing the policy. The Web UI lists all the rules in indexed order and makes it
convenient to rearrange them.

Maximum settings
The following predefined system settings affect the total permitted size of the firewall.

Table 27. System limits that affect firewall

Name Description Value
MAX_INTERFACES Maximum number of L2 interfaces on a node, 500
including Ethernet, VLAN, LAGG interfaces.
MAX _SUBNETS Maximum number of subnets in the OneFS 100
cluster
MAX_POOLS Maximum number of network pools in the 100
OneFS cluster
DEFAULT_MAX_RULES Default value of max rules within a firewall 100
policy
MAX_RULES Maximum rules in a firewall policy 200
MAX_ACTIVE_RULES Upper limit of total active rules across the 5000
cluster

414 Networking
Table 27. System limits that affect firewall (continued)
Name Description Value
MAX_INACTIVE_POLICIES Maximum number of policies that are not 200
applied to any network subnet or pool. These
policies are not written into the ipfw table.

Firewall and IPv6

IPv6 requires a rule that allows ICMP6. ICMP6 is critical for the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP).
The default global policies include the required ICMP6 rule.
If you create a custom policy that is intended for IPv6-enabled subnets and pools, be sure to include a rule that allows ICMP6.
For convenience, consider cloning the global policy and customizing the rules in the cloned policy.

Firewall and FTP

The firewall is not compatible with FTP passive mode.
If FTP is enabled, it must be configured for active mode before firewall is enabled. In passive mode, FTP creates data
connections on random ephemeral ports. This behavior conflicts with the host-based firewall operation. Passive mode is the
default setting when FTP is enabled.
To set FTP to active mode, run the following command:

isi ftp setting modify --active-mode true

For most FTP clients, you must configure the client in FTP active mode. You should also check the firewall settings on the
client.

Firewall and ports

Global firewall policies contain rules for the OneFS default ports on all services. If your installation changes port settings, you
must customize policies.
Some OneFS services allow administrators to modify the ports on which the service daemon listens. The service ports can be
changed before and after the firewall is enabled. In either case, administrators must also update firewall policies when changing
ports.
For example, the OneFS system default for ssh is port 22. Administrators can use the isi ssh settings modify command
to change that port setting. If the port is changed, the firewall rules that are intended for that port are no longer applicable.
WARNING: The firewall policies do not automatically update when you reconfigure ports. This caveat applies to
both global and custom policies.

Configuring the internal network

You can modify the internal network settings of your cluster.
The following actions are available:
● Modify the IP address ranges of the internal network and the int-b/failover network
● Modify the internal network netmask
● Configure and enable an internal failover network
● Disable internal network failover
You can configure the int-b/failover network to provide backup in the event of an int-a network failure. Configuration involves
specifying a valid netmask and IP address range for the failover network.

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Modify the internal IP address range
Each internal network requires an IP address range. The ranges should have a sufficient number of IP addresses for present
operating conditions as well as future expansion and addition of nodes. You can add, remove, or migrate IP addresses for both
the initial internal network (int-a) and secondary internal network (int-b/failover).
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Internal Network.
2. In the Internal Networks Settings area, select the network that you want to add IP addresses for.
● To select the int-a network, click int-a.
● To select the int-b/failover network, click int-b/Failover.
3. In the IP Ranges area, you can add, delete, or migrate your IP address ranges.
Ideally, the new range is contiguous with the previous one. For example, if your current IP address range is 192.168.160.60–
92.168.160.162, the new range should start with 192.168.160.163.
4. Click Submit.
5. Restart the cluster, if needed.
● If you remove any IP address that are currently in use, you must restart the cluster.
● If you add IP address changes are within the internal network netmask, you do not need to restart the cluster.
● If you change the internal network netmask, you must restart the cluster.
● If you migrate the IP address ranges, you must restart the cluster.

Related concepts
Internal IP address ranges

Modify the internal network netmask

You can modify the netmask value for the internal network.
If the netmask is too restrictive for the size of the internal network, you must modify the netmask settings. It is recommended
that you specify a class C netmask, such as 255.255.255.0, for the internal netmask. This netmask is large enough to
accommodate future nodes.
NOTE: For the changes in netmask value to take effect, you must reboot the cluster.

1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Internal Network.

2. In the Internal Network Settings area, select the network that you want to configure the netmask for.
● To select the int-a network, click int-a.
● To select the int-b/failover network, click int-b/Failover.
We recommend that the netmask values you specify for int-a and int-b/failover are the same. If you modify the netmask
value of one, modify the other.
3. In the Netmask field, type a netmask value.
You cannot modify the netmask value if the change invalidates any node addresses.
4. Click Submit.
A dialog box prompts you to reboot the cluster.
5. Specify when you want to reboot the cluster.
● To immediately reboot the cluster, click Yes. When the cluster finishes rebooting, the login page appears.
● Click No to return to the Edit Internal Network page without changing the settings or rebooting the cluster.

Related concepts
Internal IP address ranges

Configure and enable internal failover

You can enable an internal failover on your cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Internal Network.
2. In the Internal Network Settings area, click int-b/Failover.
3. In the IP Ranges area, for the int-b network, click Add range.

416 Networking
4. On the Add IP Range dialog box, enter the IP address at the low end of the range in the first IP range field.
5. In the second IP range field, type the IP address at the high end of the range.
Ensure that there is no overlap of IP addresses between the int-a and int-b/failover network ranges. For example, if the IP
address range for the int-a network is 192.168.1.1–192.168.1.100, specify a range of 192.168.2.1 - 192.168.2.100 for the int-b
network.
6. Click Submit.
7. In the IP Ranges area for the Failover network, click Add range.
Add an IP address range for the failover network, ensuring there is no overlap with the int-a network or the int-b network.
The Edit Internal Network page appears, and the new IP address range appears in the IP Ranges list.
8. In the Settings area, specify a valid netmask. Ensure that there is no overlap between the IP address range for the int-b
network or for the failover network.
We recommend that the netmask values you specify for int-a and int-b/failover are the same.
9. In the Settings area, for State, click Enable to enable the int-b and failover networks.
10. Click Submit.
The Confirm Cluster Reboot dialog box appears.
11. Restart the cluster by clicking Yes.

Related concepts
Internal network failover

Disable internal network failover

You can disable the int-b and failover internal networks.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Internal Network.
2. In the Internal Network Settings area, click int-b/Failover.
3. In the State area, click Disable.
4. Click Submit.
The Confirm Cluster Reboot dialog box appears.
5. Restart the cluster by clicking Yes.

Related concepts
Internal network failover

Managing IPv6
You can enable, disable, and configure IPv6 using the CLI.

Enable and configure IPv6

Use the CLI to enable and configure IPv6.
All IPv6 options are configurable with parameters in the isi network external modify command.
1. Enable IPv6.

isi network external modify --ipv6-enabled true

2. View configurable options that are related to IPv6.

a. Run isi network external modify with the --help option.

isi network external modify -h

b. In the help output, scroll to the IPv6 Options section.

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3. Run isi network external modify with appropriate IPv6 options.
For example, to configure IPv6 to discover and apply network settings from the IPv6 Router Advertisement, run:

isi network external modify --ipv6-auto-config-enabled true

Enable duplicate address detection (DAD)

You can configure OneFS to perform IPv6 DAD globally on the cluster. Separate configurations are required to enable DAD on
Smartconnect Service IPs and on network pools.
Enable IPv6.
1. Enable IPv6 if it is not already enabled.

isi network external modify --ipv6-enabled true

2. Enable DAD on the cluster.

The following command enables DAD and specifies a DAD timeout value of 4 seconds. With this configuration, OneFS looks
for duplicate addresses for 4 seconds before accepting connections on the IP.

isi network external modify --ipv6-dad 4

To enable DAD without a timeout, run the following command:

isi network external modify --ipv6-dad enabled

3. Optionally enable DAD on Smartconnect Service IPs.

isi network external modify --ipv6-ssip-perform-dad true

NOTE: DAD must also be enabled on the cluster, as defined in step 2.

4. Optionally enable DAD on a network pool.

isi network pools modify groupnet0.subnet0.pool0 --ipv6-perform-dad true

NOTE: DAD must also be enabled on the cluster, as defined in step 2.

View IPv6 settings

You can view the current IPv6 configuration values for the cluster and network pools.
1. To view IPv6 global settings, run the isi network external view command.

isi network external view

Client TCP Ports: 2049, 445, 20, 21, 80
Default Groupnet: groupnet0
SC Rebalance Delay: 0
Source Based Routing: False
SC Server TTL: 900

IPv6 Settings:
IPv6 Enabled: True
IPv6 Auto Configuration Enabled: False
IPv6 Generate Link Local: False
IPv6 Accept Redirects: False
IPv6 DAD: Disabled
IPv6 SSIP Perform DAD: False

418 Networking
2. To view whether IPv6 duplicate address detection (DAD) is configured on a network pool, run the isi network pools view
command.

isi network pools view groupnet0.subnet0.pool0

ID: groupnet0.subnet0.pool0
Groupnet: groupnet0
Subnet: subnet0
Name: pool0
Rules: rule0
Access Zone: System
Allocation Method: static
Aggregation Mode: lacp
Description: Initial ext-1 pool
Firewall Policy: default_pools_policy
Ifaces: 1:ext-1, 2:ext-1, 3:ext-1
IP Ranges: 10.205.232.201-10.205.232.203
IPv6 Perform DAD: No
Rebalance Policy: auto
SC Failover Policy: round_robin
Static Routes: -
NFSv3 RDMA RRoCE only: No

SmartConnect DNS Settings:

SC Suspended Nodes: -
SC Connect Policy: round_robin
SC Zone:
SC DNS Zone Aliases: -
SC Subnet:
SC TTL: 0

Managing groupnets
You can create and manage groupnets on a cluster.

Create a groupnet
You can create a groupnet and configure DNS client settings.
1. Click Cluster Management > Networking Configuration > External Network.
2. click Add a groupnet.
The Create Groupnet window opens.
3. In the Name field, type a name for the groupnet that is unique in the system.
The name can be up to 32 alphanumeric characters long and can include underscores or hyphens, but cannot include spaces
or other punctuation.
4. Optional: In the Description field, type a descriptive comment about the groupnet.
The description cannot exceed 128 characters.
5. In the DNS Settings area, configure the following DNS settings you want to apply to the groupnet:
● DNS Servers
● DNS Search Suffixes
● DNS Resolver Rotate
● Server-side DNS Search
● DNS Cache
6. Click Add Groupnet.

Related concepts
Groupnets
DNS name resolution

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Related references
DNS settings

DNS settings
You can assign DNS servers to a groupnet and modify DNS settings that specify DNS server behavior.

Setting Description
DNS Servers Sets a list of DNS IP addresses. Nodes issue DNS requests to
these IP addresses.
You cannot specify more than three DNS servers.

DNS Search Suffixes Sets the list of DNS search suffixes. Suffixes are appended to
domain names that are not fully qualified.
You cannot specify more than six suffixes.

Enable DNS resolver rotate Sets the DNS resolver to rotate or round-robin across DNS
servers.
Enable DNS server-side search Specifies whether server-side DNS searching is enabled,
which appends DNS search lists to client DNS inquiries
handled by a SmartConnect service IP address.
Enable DNS cache Specifies whether DNS caching for the groupnet is enabled.

Related concepts
Groupnets

Related tasks
Create a groupnet

Modify a groupnet
You can modify groupnet attributes including the name, supported DNS servers, and DNS configuration settings.
1. Click Cluster Management > Networking Configuration > External Network.
2. Click the View/Edit button in the row of the groupnet you want to modify.
3. From the View Groupnet Details window, click Edit.
4. From the Edit Groupnet Details window, modify the groupnet settings as needed.
5. Click Save changes.

Related concepts
Groupnets
DNS name resolution

Related references
DNS settings

Delete a groupnet
You can delete a groupnet from the system, unless it is associated with an access zone, an authentication provider, or it is the
default groupnet. Removal of the groupnet from the system might affect several other areas of OneFS and should be performed
with caution.
In several cases, the association between a groupnet and another OneFS component, such as access zones or authentication
providers, is absolute. You cannot modify these components so that they become associate with another groupnet.

420 Networking
In the event that you need to delete a groupnet, we recommend that you complete the these tasks in the following order:
1. Delete IP address pools in subnets associated with the groupnet.
2. Delete subnets associated with the groupnet .
3. Delete authentication providers associated with the groupnet .
4. Delete access zones associated with the groupnet .
1. Click Cluster Management > Networking Configuration > External Network.
2. Click the More button in the row of the groupnet you want to delete, and then click Delete Groupnet.
3. At the Confirm Delete dialog box, click Delete.
If you did not first delete access zones associated with the groupnet, the deletion fails, and the system displays an error.

Related concepts
Groupnets

View groupnets
You can view a list of all groupnets on the system and view the details of a specific groupnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > Networking Configuration > External Network.
The External Network table displays all groupnets in the system and displays the following attributes:
● Groupnet name
● DNS servers assigned to the groupnet
● The type of groupnet
● Groupnet description
2. Click the View/Edit button in a row to view the current settings for that groupnet.
The View Groupnet Details dialog box opens and displays the following settings:
● Groupnet name
● Groupnet description
● DNS servers assigned to the groupnet
● DNS search suffixes
● Whether DNS resolver is enabled
● Whether DNS search is enabled
● Whether DNS caching is enabled
3. Click the tree arrow next to a groupnet name to view subnets assigned to the groupnet.
The table displays each subnet in a new row within the groupnet tree.
4. When you have finished viewing groupnet details, click Close.

Related concepts
Groupnets

Managing external network subnets

You can create and manage subnets on a cluster.

Create a subnet
You can add a subnet to the external network. Subnets are created under a groupnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click More > Add Subnet next to the groupnet that will contain the new subnet.
The system displays the Create Subnet window.
3. In the Name field, specify the name of the new subnet.
The name can be up to 32 alphanumeric characters long and can include underscores or hyphens, but cannot include spaces
or other punctuation.
4. Optional: In the Description field, type a descriptive comment about the subnet.

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 The comment can be no more than 128 characters.
5. From the IP family area, select one of the following IP address formats for the subnet:
● IPv4
● IPv6
All subnet settings and IP address pools added to the subnet must use the specified address format. You cannot modify the
address family once the subnet has been created.
6. In the Netmask field, specify a subnet mask or prefix length, depending on the IP family you selected.
● For an IPv4 subnet, type a dot-decimal octet (x.x.x.x) that represents the subnet mask.
● For an IPv6 subnet, type an integer (ranging from 1 to 128) that represents the network prefix length.
7. In the Gateway Address field, type the IP address of the gateway through which the cluster routes communications to
systems outside of the subnet.
8. In the Gateway Priority field, type the priority (integer) that determines which subnet gateway will be installed as the
default gateway on nodes that have more then one subnet.
A value of 1 represents the highest priority.
9. In the MTU list, type or select the size of the maximum transmission units the cluster uses in network communication. Any
numerical value is allowed, but must be compatible with your network and the configuration of all devices in the network
path. Common settings are 1500 (standard frames) and 9000 (jumbo frames).
Although OneFS supports both 1500 MTU and 9000 MTU, using a larger frame size for network traffic permits more
efficient communication on the external network between clients and cluster nodes. For example, if a subnet is connected
through a 10 GbE interface and NIC aggregation is configured for IP address pools in the subnet, we recommend that you
set the MTU to 9000. To benefit from using jumbo frames, all devices in the network path must be configured to use jumbo
frames.
10. If you plan to use SmartConnect for connection balancing, in the SmartConnect Service IP field, type the IP address that
will receive all incoming DNS requests for each IP address pool according to the client connection policy. You must have at
least one subnet configured with a SmartConnect service IP in order to use connection balancing.
11. In the SmartConnect Service Name field, specify the SmartConnect service name. The SmartConnect service name is an
optional field to answer nameserver, Start of Authority, and other DNS queries. It specifies the domain name corresponding
to the SmartConnect Service IP (SSIP) address, serving as the glue record in the DNS delegation tying the nameserver and
IP address.
12. In the Advanced Settings section, you can enable VLAN tagging if you want to enable the cluster to participate in virtual
networks.
NOTE: Configuring a VLAN requires advanced knowledge of network switches. Consult your network switch
documentation before configuring your cluster for a VLAN.

13. If you enable VLAN tagging, specify a VLAN ID that corresponds to the ID number for the VLAN set on the switch, with a
value from 1 through 4094.
14. Click Remove IP to remove a hardware load balancing IP.
15. Click Add Subnet.

Related concepts
Subnets
IPv6 support

Modify a subnet
You can modify a subnet on the external network.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the subnet that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Subnet Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Subnet Details window.
4. Modify the subnet settings, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Subnets

422 Networking
Delete a subnet
You can delete a subnet from the external network.
Deleting an subnet that is in use can prevent access to the cluster. Client connections to the cluster through any IP address
pool that belongs to the deleted subnet will be terminated.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click More > Delete Subnet next to the subnet that you want to delete.
3. At the confirmation prompt, click Delete.

Related concepts
Subnets

View subnet settings

You can view setting details for a specific subnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the subnet that you want to view.
The system displays the View Subnet Details window.
3. Click Close to close the window.

Related concepts
Subnets

Configure a SmartConnect service IP address

You can set a SmartConnect service IP address in a subnet that will receive all incoming DNS requests for each IP address pool
that is configured to use this subnet as a SmartConnect service subnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the subnet that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Subnet Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Subnet Details window.
4. In the SmartConnect Service IP field, type the IP address.
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Subnets
DNS request handling

Enable or disable VLAN tagging

You can configure a cluster to participate in multiple virtual private networks, also known as virtual LANs or VLANs.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the subnet that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Subnet Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Subnet Details window.
4. Select the Allow VLAN Tagging checkbox to enable or disable VLAN tagging.
5. If you enable VLAN tagging, type a number between 1 and 4094 in the VLAN ID field. The number must correspond to the
VLAN ID number set on the switch.
6. Click Save Changes.

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Related concepts
Subnets
VLANs

Add or remove an IP address range per subnet

You can add or remove an IP address range within a subnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the subnet that you want to modify.
The system displays the View subnet details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit subnet details window.
4. To add a range, in the SmartConnect service IPs area, enter a range of IP addresses you want to assign to the subnet.
Specify the range in the following format: low IP address - high IP address
If you want to use a single IP address, enter the same IP address into both fields.
5. To add another range, click Add an IP range.
The system provides fields in which you can enter the low and high IP addresses of the additional range.
6. To delete an IP address range, click Remove IP range next to the range you want to delete.
7. Click Save Changes.

Managing IP address pools

You can create and manage IP address pools on the cluster.

Create an IP address pool

You can add an IP address pool to the external network. Pools are created under a subnet.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click More > Add Pool next to the subnet that will contain the new IP address pool.
The system displays the Create Pool window.
3. In the Name field, specify the name of the new IP address pool.
The name can be up to 32 alphanumeric characters long and can include underscores or hyphens, but cannot include spaces
or other punctuation.
4. Optional: In the Description field, type a descriptive comment about the IP address pool.
The comment can be no more than 128 characters.
5. From the Access Zone list, select the access zone you want associated with the IP address pool
Clients connecting through IP addresses in this pool can access data only in the associated access zone.
6. In the IP range area, enter a range of IP addresses you want assigned to the IP address pool in the fields provided.
Specify the range in the following format: <lower_ip_address>–<higher_ip_address>.
7. Click Add Pool.

Related concepts
IP address pools

Modify an IP address pool

You can modify an IP address pool on the external network.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.

424 Networking
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. Modify the IP address pool settings, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
IP address pools

Delete an IP address pool

You can use the web interface to delete IP address pool settings.
Deleting an IP address pool that is in use can prevent access to the cluster. Client connections to the cluster through any IP
address in the pool will be terminated.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click More > Delete Pool next to the IP address pool that you want to delete.
3. At the confirmation prompt, click Delete.

Related concepts
IP address pools

View IP address pool settings

You can view setting details for a specific IP address pool.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to view.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Close to close the window.

Related concepts
IP address pools

Add or remove an IP address range

You can add or remove an IP address range within IP address pool settings.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. To add a range, in the IP range area, enter a range of IP addresses you want assigned to the IP address pool in the fields
provided.
Specify the range in the following format: low IP address - high IP address
5. To add an additional range, click Add an IP range.
The system provides fields in which you can enter the low and high IP addresses of the additional range.
6. To delete an IP address range, click Remove IP range next to the range you want to delete.
7. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
IP address pools

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Managing SmartConnect Settings
You can configure SmartConnect settings within each IP address pool on the cluster, and view the status of nodes in a network
pool.

Modify a SmartConnect DNS zone

You can specify a SmartConnect DNS zone and alternate DNS zone aliases that will handle DNS requests for an IP address pool.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the SmartConnect Basic area, specify the SmartConnect DNS zone in the Zone name field.
The SmartConnect DNS zone should be a fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
5. Optional: From the SmartConnect Advanced area, specify any aliases for the SmartConnect DNS zone in the
SmartConnect Zone Aliases field.
A SmartConnect Advanced license is required to specify zone aliases.
6. Click Save Changes.
To use the SmartConnect zone you need to configure your DNS infrastructure to delegate the DNS zone. Add a new name
server (NS) record pointing at the SmartConnect service IP address, and then add a zone delegation to the new name server
for the FQDN of the SmartConnect zone name.

Related concepts
SmartConnect zones and aliases

Specify a SmartConnect service subnet

You can designate a subnet as the SmartConnect service subnet for an IP address pool. The service subnet answers all DNS
requests on behalf of the pool's SmartConnect DNS zone.
The subnet that you designate as the SmartConnect service subnet must have a SmartConnect service IP address configured,
and the subnet must be in the same groupnet as the IP address pool. For example, although a pool might belong to subnet3, you
can designate subnet5 as the SmartConnect service subnet as long as both subnets are under the same groupnet.
If a pool does not have a designated service subnet, incoming DNS requests are answered by the subnet that contains the pool,
provided that the subnet is configured with a SmartConnect service IP address. Otherwise, the DNS requests are excluded.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the SmartConnect Basic area, select a subnet from the SmartConnect Service Subnet list.
To add a single IP address to a subnet, add the same IP address in both of the range fields.
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
DNS name resolution

Related tasks
Configure a SmartConnect service IP address

426 Networking
Suspend or resume a node
You can suspend and resume SmartConnect DNS responses for a node.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. To suspend a node:
a. In the SmartConnect Suspended Nodes area, click Suspend Nodes.
The system displays the Suspend Nodes window.
b. Select a logical node number (LNN) from the Available table, and then click Add.
c. Click Suspend Nodes.
d. At the confirmation window, click Confirm.
5. To resume a node:
a. From the SmartConnect Suspended Nodes table, click the Resume button next to the node number you want to
resume.
b. At the confirmation window, click Confirm.
6. Click Close.

Related concepts
DNS name resolution

Configure IP address allocation

You can specify whether the IP addresses in an IP address pool are allocated to network interfaces statically or dynamically.
To configure dynamic IP address allocation, you must activate a SmartConnect Advanced license.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the Allocation Method list in the SmartConnect Advanced Settings area, select one of the following allocation
methods:
● Static
● Dynamic
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
IP address allocation

Supported IP allocation methods

The IP address allocation policy specifies how the IP addresses in the pool are assigned to an available network interface.
You can specify whether to use static or dynamic allocation.

Static Assigns one IP address to each network interface added to the IP address pool, but does not guarantee
that all IP addresses are assigned.
Once assigned, the network interface keeps the IP address indefinitely, even if the network interface
becomes unavailable. To release the IP address, remove the network interface from the pool or remove it
from the cluster.
Without a license for SmartConnect Advanced, static is the only method available for IP address
allocation.

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Dynamic Assigns IP addresses to each network interface added to the IP address pool until all IP addresses are
assigned. This guarantees a response when clients connect to any IP address in the pool.
If a network interface becomes unavailable, its IP addresses are automatically moved to other available
network interfaces in the pool as determined by the IP address failover policy.
This method is only available with a license for SmartConnect Advanced.

Related concepts
IP address allocation

Allocation recommendations based on file sharing protocols

It is recommended that you select a static allocation method if your clients connect through stateful protocols and a dynamic
allocation method with stateless protocols.
The following table displays several common protocols and the recommended allocation method:

File sharing protocol Recommended allocation method

● SMB Static
● HTTP
● HDFS
● FTP
● sFTP
● FTPS
● SyncIQ
● SmartSync
● NFSv3 Dynamic
● NFSv4
● S3

Related concepts
IP address allocation

Configure a connection balancing policy

You can set a connection balancing policy for an IP address pool.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the SmartConnect Advanced area, select one of the following balancing methods from the Client Connection
Balancing Policy list:
● Round-robin
NOTE: Round-robin is the default setting and the only balancing method available without activating a
SmartConnect Advanced license.
● Connection count
● Throughput
● CPU usage
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Connection balancing

428 Networking
Supported connection balancing methods
The connection balancing policy determines how the DNS server handles client connections to the cluster.
You can specify one of the following balancing methods:

Round-robin Selects the next available node on a rotating basis. This is the default method. Without a SmartConnect
license for advanced settings, this is the only method available for load balancing.
Connection count Determines the number of open TCP connections on each available node and selects the node with the
fewest client connections.
Network Determines the average throughput on each available node and selects the node with the lowest network
throughput interface load.
CPU usage Determines the average CPU utilization on each available node and selects the node with lightest
processor usage.

Related concepts
Connection balancing

Configure an IP failover policy

You can set an IP failover policy for an IP address pool.
To configure an IP failover policy, you must activate a SmartConnect Advanced license.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the SmartConnect Advanced area, select one of the following failover methods from the IP Failover Policy list:
● Round-robin
● Connection count
● Throughput
● CPU usage
5. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
IP address failover

Configure an IP rebalance policy

You can configure a manual or automatic rebalance policy for an IP address pool.
To configure a rebalance policy for an IP address pool, you must activate a SmartConnect Advanced license and set the
allocation method to dynamic.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the SmartConnect Advanced area, select one of the following rebalancing methods from the Rebalance Policy list:
● Automatic
● Manual
5. Click Save Changes.

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Related concepts
IP address rebalancing

Supported rebalancing methods

The IP address rebalance policy specifies when to redistribute IP addresses if one or more previously unavailable network
interfaces becomes available again.
You can set rebalancing to occur manually or automatically:

Manual Does not redistribute IP addresses until you manually issue a rebalance command through the command-
line interface.
Upon rebalancing, IP addresses will be redistributed according to the connection balancing method
specified by the IP address failover policy defined for the IP address pool.
Automatic Automatically redistributes IP addresses according to the connection balancing method specified by the IP
address failover policy defined for the IP address pool.
Automatic rebalance may also be triggered by changes to cluster nodes, network interfaces, or the
configuration of the external network.
NOTE: Rebalancing can disrupt client connections. Ensure the client workflow on the IP address pool
is appropriate for automatic rebalancing.

Manually rebalance IP addresses

You can manually rebalance a specific IP address pool or all of the pools on the external network.
You must activate a SmartConnect Advanced license.
1. To manually rebalance IP addresses in a pool:
a. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
b. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
c. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
d. From the Advanced Settings area, click Rebalance Pool IPs.
e. At the confirmation window, click Confirm.
f. Click Cancel to close the Edit Pool Details window.
2. To manually rebalance all IP address pools:
a. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Settings.
b. Click Rebalance All IPs.
c. At the confirmation window, click Confirm.

Related concepts
IP address rebalancing

Managing network interface members

You can add and remove network interfaces to IP address pools.

Add or remove a network interface

You can configure which network interfaces are assigned to an IP address pool.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.

430 Networking
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. To add a network interface to the IP address pool:
a. From the Pool Interface Members area, select the interface you want from the Available table.
If you add an aggregated interface to the pool, you cannot individually add any interfaces that are part of the aggregated
interface.
b. Click Add.
5. To remove a network interface from the IP address pool:
a. From the Pool Interface Members area, select the interface you want from the In Pool table.
b. Click Remove.
6. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Managing network interface members
Link aggregation

Configure link aggregation

You can combine multiple, physical external network interfaces on a node into a single logical interface through link aggregation.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. From the Pool Interface Members area, select the aggregated interface you want from the Available table and click Add.
5. From the Advanced Settings area, select one of the following link aggregation methods from the Aggregation Mode list:
● Round-robin
● Failover
● LACP
● Load Balance
6. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Link aggregation

Link aggregation modes

The link aggregation mode determines how traffic is balanced and routed among aggregated network interfaces. The
aggregation mode is selected on a per-pool basis and applies to all aggregated network interfaces in the IP address pool.
OneFS supports dynamic and static aggregation modes. A dynamic aggregation mode enables nodes with aggregated interfaces
to communicate with the switch so that the switch can use an analogous aggregation mode. Static modes do not facilitate
communication between nodes and the switch.
OneFS provides support for the following link aggregation modes:

Link Aggregation Dynamic aggregation mode that supports the IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP).
Control Protocol You can configure LACP at the switch level, which allows the node to negotiate interface aggregation
(LACP) with the switch. LACP balances outgoing traffic across the interfaces based on hashed protocol header
information that includes the source and destination address and the VLAN tag, if available. This option is
the default aggregation mode.
Loadbalance Static aggregation method that accepts all incoming traffic and balances outgoing traffic over aggregated
(FEC) interfaces based on hashed protocol header information that includes source and destination addresses.

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Active/Passive Static aggregation mode that switches to the next active interface when the primary interface becomes
Failover unavailable. The primary interface handles traffic until there is an interruption in communication. At that
point, one of the secondary interfaces will take over the work of the primary.
Round-robin Static aggregation mode that rotates connections through the nodes in a first-in, first-out sequence,
handling all processes without priority. Balances outbound traffic across all active ports in the aggregated
link and accepts inbound traffic on any port.
NOTE: This method is not recommended if your cluster is handling TCP/IP workloads.

Related tasks
Configure link aggregation

Link aggregation mapping

Network interfaces that can be added to an IP address pool as an aggregated interface are included when viewing a list of
network interfaces on a node. The following table shows examples of how aggregated interfaces are mapped to non-aggregated
interfaces.

Logical Network Interface (LNI) Aggregated LNI

ext-1 ext-agg = ext-1 + ext-2
ext-2

ext-1 ext-agg = ext-1 + ext-2

ext-2 ext-agg-2 = ext-3 + ext-4
ext-3 ext-agg-3 = ext-3 + ext-4 + ext-1 + ext-2
ext-4

ext-1 ext-agg = ext-1 + ext-2

ext-2 10gige-agg-1 = 10gige-1 + 10gige-2
10gige-1
10gige-2

Related tasks
Configure link aggregation

Managing node provisioning rules

You can create and manage node provisioning rules that automate the configuration of new network interfaces.

Create a node provisioning rule

You can create a node provisioning rule to specify how network interfaces on new nodes are configured when the nodes are
added to the cluster. Node provisioning rules are created under an IP address pool.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click More > Add Rule next to the IP address pool that will contain the new node provisioning rule.
The system displays the Create Rule window.
3. From the Name field, specify the name of the new node provisioning rule.
4. Optional: In the Description field, type a descriptive comment about the rule.
The comment can be no more than 128 characters.
5. From the Interface Type list, select the network interface type that will be added to the pool when the new node is added
to the cluster.

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6. From the Node Type list, select one of the following node types:
● Any
● Storage
● Accelerator
● Backup accelerator
The rule is applied when a node matching the selected type is added to the cluster.
7. Click Add rule.

Related concepts
Node provisioning rules

Modify a node provisioning rule

You can modify node provisioning rule settings.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the node provisioning rule that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Rule Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Rule Details window.
4. Modify the node provisioning rule settings, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Node provisioning rules

Delete a node provisioning rule

You can delete a node provisioning rule that is no longer necessary.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click More > Delete Rule next to the node provisioning rule that you want to delete.
3. At the confirmation prompt, click Delete.

Related concepts
Node provisioning rules

View node provisioning rule settings

You can view setting details for a specific node provisioning rule.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the node provisioning rule that you want to view.
The system displays the View Rule Details window.
3. Click Close to close the window.

Related concepts
Node provisioning rules

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Managing routing options
You can provide additional control of the direction of outgoing client traffic through source-based routing or static route
configuration.
If both source-based routing and static routes are configured, the static routes will take priority for traffic that matches the
static routes.

Enable or disable source-based routing

You can enable or disable source-based routing globally on the cluster.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Settings.
2. Select or deselect the Enable source based routing checkbox.
3. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Source-based routing

Add or remove a static route

You can configure static routes to direct outgoing traffic to specific destinations through a specific gateway. Static routes are
configured at the IP address pool level.
Static routes must match the IP address family (IPv4 or IPv6) of the IP address pool they are configured within.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. To add a static route:
a. From the Static Routes area, click Add static route.
The system displays the Create Static Route window.
b. In the Subnet field, specify the IPv4 or IPv6 address of the subnet that traffic will be routed to.
c. In the Netmask or Prefixlen field, specify the netmask (IPv4) or prefix length (IPv6) of the subnet you provided.
d. In the Gateway field, specify the IPv4 or IPv6 address of the gateway that traffic will be routed through.
e. Click Add Static Route.
5. To remove a static route, from the Static Routes table, click the Remove button next to the route you want to delete.
6. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
Static routing

Managing DNS cache settings

You can set DNS cache settings for the external network.

Flush the DNS cache

You can simultaneously flush the DNS cache of each groupnet that has enabled DNS caching.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > DNS Cache.
2. From the Actions area, click Flush DNS Cache.
3. At the confirmation window, click Confirm.

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Modify DNS cache settings
You can modify global settings that are applied to the DNS cache of each groupnet that has enabled DNS caching.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > DNS Cache.
2. Modify the DNS cache settings, and then click Save Changes.

DNS cache settings

You can configure settings for the DNS cache.

Setting Description
TTL No Error Minimum Specifies the lower boundary on time-to-live for cache hits.
The default value is 30 seconds.

TTL No Error Maximum Specifies the upper boundary on time-to-live for cache hits.
The default value is 3600 seconds.

TTL Non-existent Domain Minimum Specifies the lower boundary on time-to-live for nxdomain.
The default value is 15 seconds.

TTL Non-existent Domain Maximum Specifies the upper boundary on time-to-live for nxdomain.
The default value is 3600 seconds.

TTL Other Failures Minimum Specifies the lower boundary on time-to-live for non-
nxdomain failures.
The default value is 0 seconds.

TTL Other Failures Maximum Specifies the upper boundary on time-to-live for non-
nxdomain failures.
The default value is 60 seconds.

TTL Lower Limit For Server Failures Specifies the lower boundary on time-to-live for DNS server
failures.
The default value is 300 seconds.

TTL Upper Limit For Server Failures Specifies the upper boundary on time-to-live for DNS server
failures.
The default value is 3600 seconds.

Eager Refresh Specifies the lead time to refresh cache entries that are
nearing expiration.
The default value is 0 seconds.

Cache Entry Limit Specifies the maximum number of entries that the DNS cache
can contain.
The default value is 65536 entries.

Test Ping Delta Specifies the delta for checking the cbind cluster health.
The default value is 30 seconds.

Managing host-based firewalls

The OneFS host-based firewall controls inbound traffic on the front-end network. Administrators can enable default global
policies or create custom policies and rules, based on their network management and security requirements.

Networking 435
Modify the OneFS firewall service
You can modify the OneFS firewall service settings.
1. When the firewall service is enabled, all external network traffic is filtered according to the firewall policies and rules. To
modify the firewall service, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration > Settings.
2. Click the toggle switch to enable or disable the firewall service on the cluster.

Create a firewall policy

You can create custom firewall policies.
1. Click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration > Firewall Policies tab.
2. Click Create Policy.
3. In the Create Policy window, configure the following settings that you want to apply to this policy:
● Policy Name
● Description
● Default Action of Allow or Deny.
4. Click Save.

View a firewall policy

You can view a list of all firewall policies on the cluster, or view the details of a specific policy.
1. To view a firewall policy, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration.
2. On the Firewall Policies tab, you can view the list of firewall policies. Expand a policy to view the rules associated with that
policy.

Create a firewall rule

You can create a custom firewall rule to add to a default or custom policy.
1. Click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration > Firewall Policies tab.
2. Expand the policy that you want to create a rule for.
3. Click Add Rule.
4. In the Add Rule window, configure the following settings that you want to apply to this rule:
● Rule name
● Description
● Index: indicates which order to apply the rules in a given policy.
● Action: Allow, Deny or Reject.
● Protocol: ALL, TCP, UDP, ICMP, or ICMP6.
● Destination ports: indicates the destination ports. Separate multiple values with a comma.
● Source ports: indicates the source ports. Separate multiple values with a comma.
● Source networks: indicates the source networks. Separate multiple values with a comma.
5. Click Save.

View a firewall rule

You can view the details of a specific firewall rule.
1. To view a firewall rule, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration.
2. On the Firewall Policies tab, expand a policy to view the associated rules.

436 Networking
Modify a firewall rule
You can modify an existing firewall rule.
1. To modify a firewall rule, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration.
2. On the Firewall Policies tab, expand the policy that contains the rule you want to delete. Locate the rule and click the
pencil icon to edit the rule.
3. Click Save.

Delete a firewall rule

You can delete an existing firewall rule that you no longer need.
1. To delete a firewall rule, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration.
2. On the Firewall Policies tab, expand the policy that contains the rule you want to delete. Locate the rule and click the X to
delete the rule. You are asked to confirm.

Clone a firewall policy

You can clone a firewall policy and all its rules to a new policy. Cloning is helpful when you intend to create a policy based on a
complex existing policy.
1. To clone a firewall policy, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration.
2. On the Firewall Policies tab, locate the policy that you want to clone and click More Actions > Clone policy.
3. Edit the policy details and click Save.

Delete a firewall policy

You can delete a firewall policy that you no longer need.
1. To clone a firewall policy, click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration. To clone a firewall policy, click Cluster
Management > Firewall Configuration.
2. On the Firewall Policies tab, locate the policy that you want to clone and click More Actions > Delete. You are asked to
confirm. The default_subnets_policy and default_pools_policy cannot be deleted.

Associate a network subnet or pool to a firewall policy

You can associate a network subnet or a pool to a firewall policy.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network configuration.
2. On the External network tab, you can select a subnet or a pool and click View/Edit.
3. In the Edit subnet details window, click Edit.
4. Scroll to the Firewall policy section and in the drop-down, select the policy to associate with this pool.
5. Click Save changes.

Reset the global default firewall policies

You can reset the global OneFS firewall policies.
1. Click Cluster Management > Firewall Configuration > Settings.
2. Click the button to Reset default policies.
3. Click Reset to confirm the action.

Networking 437
Managing TCP ports
You can modify the list of client TCP ports available to the external network.
OneFS uses TCP ports that are configured in the WebUI under Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Settings
to drop TCP sessions on failover. This configuration can assist with protocol failover for the following reason: If a client is
connected to IP X on node Y and the IP moves, the TCP connection may take some time to notice the change and failover. But
if you configure the port it is using (for example, port 111 for NFS), OneFS will explicitly end the TCP session. This reduces the
time that is required for the connection to failover.

Add or remove TCP ports

You can add and remove TCP ports from the list of ports available for the external network.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > Settings.
2. To add a TCP port:
a. From the TCP Ports area, click Add TCP Ports.
The system displays the Add TCP Ports window.
b. In the TCP Ports field, type a port number.
c. Optional: Click Add another port to specify additional port numbers.
d. Click Add Ports.
3. To remove a TCP port, from the TCP Ports table, click the Remove button next to the port you want to delete.
4. Click Save Changes.

438 Networking
 30
NFS3oRDMA
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• RDMA support for NFSoRDMA
• Enable NFSoRDMA
• Disable NFSoRDMA
• View interface details of a node
• View IP address pool details
• Create an IP address pool with NFSoRDMA capabilities
• Modify an existing IP address pool

RDMA support for NFSoRDMA

The Network File System over Remote Direct Memory Access (NFSoRDMA) feature lets you perform memory-to-memory
transfer of data over high speed networks.
Network adapters that have RDMA support (known as RNICs) are used to transfer data directly, while using minimal amount of
CPU, resulting in increased throughput. For applications that access large datasets on remote NFS, this feature enables:
● Increased single-stream throughput to leverage the full throughput of high speed networks where the network interface
controllers coordinate the transfer of large amounts of data at line speed.
● Low latency to provide fast responses to network requests, and, as a result, makes remote file storage feel as if it is directly
attached storage.
● Low CPU utilization to use fewer CPU cycles when transferring data over the network, which leaves more power available to
other applications running on the client.
The NFSoRDMA feature adds another front-end network transport communication mechanism between the client and OneFS
node. The front-end network transport communication provides remote data transfer directly to and from memory without CPU
intervention. This improves CPU utilization on the client machine and improve read or write throughput.
Currently, NFSoRDMA is only supported for only NFSv3 and not supported for VLAN and Aggregated interfaces.
NOTE: The NFSoRDMA feature requires that you have the Node Firmware Package (NFP) version 11.6.1 installed on your
cluster, as well as the following patch for your version of OneFS:
● OneFS 9.5.0.0 or later - no patch required
● OneFS 9.4 - patch 9.4.0.5 or later
● OneFS 9.3 - patch 9.3.0.8 or later
● OneFS 9.2.1 - patch 9.2.1.15 or later
For more information about NFP versions, see the release notes.

Enable NFSoRDMA
You can enable NFSoRDMA on clusters that have RDMA capable NICs.
Log in to the OneFS web administration interface as a user with the administrator role.
1. Click Protocols > UNIX sharing (NFS) > Global settings.
2. In the Edit NFS global settings area, select the NFSoRDMA check box.
3. Click Save.
The NFSoRDMA feature is enabled.

NFS3oRDMA 439
 If you enable NFSoRDMA and the cluster does not have RDMA capable NICs, the following warning appears but the settings
are saved.

Cluster does not have any RDMA capable NICs

Disable NFSoRDMA
You can disable the NFS share with interface having NFSoRDMA capabilities.
Log in to the OneFS web administration interface as a user with the administrator role.
1. Click Protocols > UNIX sharing (NFS) > Global settings.
2. In the Edit NFS global settings area, clear the NFSoRDMA check box.
3. Click Save.
The NFSoRDMA feature is disabled.

View interface details of a node

You can enable the NFS share with an interface having NFSoRDMA capabilities.
Log in to the OneFS web administration interface as a user with the administrator role.
1. Click Cluster management > Hardware configuration.
2. In the Hardware configuration page, click Cluster.
3. Click View details next to the node whose interface details you want to view.
The Interface details window appears.
4. View the interface details. Under interface flags, the SUPPORTS_RDMA_RRoCE flag property appears, denoting the
ability of NFSoRDMA for that interface.
Click Close to exit the Interface details window.

View IP address pool details

You can view if the NFSoRDMA feature is enabled or disabled for a specific IP address pool.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to view.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Under the Pool interface members area, you can view if NFSoRDMA is enabled or disabled.

Create an IP address pool with NFSoRDMA

capabilities
You can enable NFSoRDMA to filter out the interface that has the capability of NFSoRDMA and create an IP address pool with
only NFSoRDMA capabilities.
1. Click Cluster management > Network configuration > External network.
2. Click More > Add pool next to the subnet that will contain the new IP address pool.
The system displays the Create Pool window.
3. Under the Pool interface members area, select the Enable NFSoRDMA check box. For entering the other details while
creating the pool, see Create an IP address pool.
4. Click Add pool.
An IP address pool with NFSoRDMA capabilities is created.
You can clear the Enable NFSoRDMA check box to disable NFSoRDMA capabilities from the IP address pool.

440 NFS3oRDMA
Modify an existing IP address pool
You can enable NFSoRDMA on the pool by modify an existing IP address pool on the external network.
1. Click Cluster Management > Network Configuration > External Network.
2. Click View/Edit next to the IP address pool that you want to view or modify.
The system displays the View Pool Details window.
3. Click Edit.
The system displays the Edit Pool Details window.
4. Select the Enable NFSoRDMA check box.
The Confirm Action dialog box appears with the following message:

On enabling NFSoRDMA on the pool, interfaces selected in the pool which are not
NFSoRDMA enabled will be removed. Do you want to procced?

5. Click Proceed to enable NFSoRDMA on the pool.

Click Cancel to exit the Confirm Action dialog box.

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 31
Smart QoS
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Smart QoS
• Workload monitoring
• Create a standard dataset
• Pin a workload
• Throttle a workload
• Additional information

Smart QoS
You can define and monitor performance-related issues on the cluster using OneFS Smart QoS monitoring.
As clusters increase in size and the number of competing workloads place demands on system resources, more visibility is
required to share cluster resources equitably. Smart QoS provides you with fine-grained accounting of the dynamic resources
which helps in the better utilization and performance of the cluster.
OneFS supports Smart QoS monitoring with several protocols, including NFS, SMB, and S3. You can use Smart QoS monitoring
to define performance datasets to enable tracking any combination of directories, shares, users, clients, and access zones. You
can view the associated performance statistics, including protocols operations, disk operations, read/write bandwidth, and CPU.
You can configure customized settings and filters to match specific workloads for a dataset that meets the required criteria.
Reported statistics are refreshed every 30 seconds. The performance dataset data is available to you through the CLI and PAPI.

Workload monitoring
Workload monitoring is a key for show-back and charge-back resource accounting.
Workload is a set of identification metrics and resource consumption metrics. For example:

{username bob zone_name System}

{cpu 1.2 s, bytes_in 10 K, bytes_out 20 M,...}

Indicates that the user bob in the zone System consumed 1.2 s of CPU with 10 Kb bytes in and 20 Mb bytes out, and so on.
Dataset is a specification of identification metrics to aggregate workloads by, and the workloads collected that match
that specification. For instance, the workload above would be in a dataset that specified identification metrics {username,
zone_name}.
Filter is a method for including only workloads that match specific identification metrics. For example, take the following
workloads for a dataset with filter {zone_name:System}:
● {username:bob , zone_name:System} would be included.
● {username:mary , zone_name:System} would be included.
● {username:bob , zone_name:Quarantine} would not be included.
A performance dataset automatically collects a list of the top workloads, with pinning and filtering to allow further customization
to that list.

Create a standard dataset

You can create a new dataset.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.

442 Smart QoS

2. Click Create Performance Dataset.
3. Enter the dataset name and select the identification metrics that the dataset will monitor.
4. Click Save.

View datasets
You can view the list of configured performance datasets.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. Select the tab for an individual dataset to view the details of that dataset.

Modify details of dataset

You can modify the name of a configured dataset.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset that you want to rename, click Rename Dataset.
3. Enter a new dataset name and click Save.

Delete dataset
You can delete a dataset.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset that you want to delete, click Delete Dataset.
3. Click Delete to confirm.

Pin a workload
If you want a workload to be always visible, you can pin it.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab of the dataset that contains the workload that you want to pin, click Pin Workload.
3. Select the identification metrics and set the optional Protocol Ops limit to throttle the workload.
4. If you are throttling the workload, click Pin and Throttle Workload.
5. If you are not throttling the workload, click Pin workload.
6. If you have other workloads to pin, check the box for Pin another workload before clicking Pin and Throttle Workload or
Pin workload.

View a pinned workload

You can view the details of a pinned workload.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset that has the pinned workload that you want to view, click the Pinned Workloads tab.

Unpin a workload
You can unpin a workload.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset that has the pinned workload that you want to unpin, in the Actions column, click Unpin.
3. Click Unpin to confirm.

Smart QoS 443

Throttle a workload
You can set a protocol operations limit on a pinned workload.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset with the workload that you want to throttle, click the Pinned Workloads tab.
3. In the Actions column, click Throttle Workload.
4. Enter an integer value limit for throttling.
NOTE: Setting a protocol operation limit on the root of /ifs or on the System access zone can cause performance
degradation.
5. Click Save to confirm.

Modify a workload throttle

You can modify the protocol operations limit on a pinned workload.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset with the throttled workload, click the Pinned Workload tab.
3. Click More.
4. Click Edit Throttle.
5. Enter a new integer value limit for throttling.
6. Click Save to confirm.

Remove a workload throttle

You can remove the protocol operations limit from a pinned workload.
1. Click Cluster management > Smart QoS.
2. On the tab for the dataset with the throttled workload, click the Pinned Workload tab.
3. In the Actions column, click Remove Throttle.
4. Click Remove Throttle to confirm.

Additional information
These pointers provide you with some tips regarding the feature.
● Name lookup failures, for example UID to username mappings, are reported in an additional column in the statistics output.
● Statistics are updated every 30 s. A newly created dataset does not show up in the statistics. Similarly, an old dataset might
show up until that update occurs.
● Some identification metrics may not be available until post commit when upgrading.
● export_id and share_name metrics can be combined in a dataset.
○ Dataset with both metrics list workloads with either export_id or share_name.
○ Dataset with only share_name metric excludes NFS workloads.
○ Dataset with only export_id metric excludes SMB workloads.
● Paths and Non-Primary groups are only reported if they are pinned or have a filter applied.
● Paths and Non-Primary groups might result in work being accounted twice within the same dataset, as they can match
multiple workloads. The total amount that is overaccounted within a dataset is aggregated into the Overaccounted workload.

444 Smart QoS

 32
Antivirus
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• Antivirus overview
• On-access scanning
• ICAP Antivirus policy scanning
• Individual file scanning using ICAP
• WORM files and antivirus
• Antivirus scan reports
• ICAP servers
• CAVA servers
• ICAP threat responses
• CAVA threat responses
• Configuring global antivirus settings
• Managing ICAP servers
• Managing CAVA servers
• Create an antivirus policy
• Managing ICAP antivirus policies
• Managing antivirus scans
• Managing antivirus threats
• Managing antivirus reports

Antivirus overview
You can scan the files that you store on a PowerScale cluster for viruses, malware, and other security threats by integrating
with third-party scanning services through the Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) or the Common AntiVirus Agent
(CAVA).
OneFS sends files through ICAP or CAVA to a server running third-party antivirus scanning software. These servers are called
ICAP servers or CAVA servers. These servers scan files for viruses.
After a server scans a file, it notifies OneFS of whether the file is a threat. If a threat is detected, OneFSnotifies system
administrators by creating an event, displaying near real-time summary information, and documenting the threat in an antivirus
scan report. You can configure OneFS to request that ICAP or CAVA servers attempt to repair infected files. You can also
configure OneFS to protect users against potentially dangerous files by truncating or quarantining infected files.
Before OneFS sends a file for scanning, it ensures that the scan is not redundant. If a scanned file has not been modified since
the last scan, the file will not be scanned again unless the virus database on the antivirus server has been updated since the last
scan.

NOTE: Antivirus scanning is available only on nodes in the cluster that are connected to the external network.

On-access scanning
You can configure OneFS to send files to be scanned before they are opened, after they are closed, or both. This can be done
through file access protocols such as SMB, NFS, and SSH. Sending files to be scanned after they are closed is faster but less
secure. Sending files to be scanned before they are opened is slower but more secure.
If OneFS is configured to ensure that files are scanned after they are closed, when a user creates or modifies a file on the
cluster, OneFS queues the file to be scanned. OneFS then sends the file to an ICAP or CAVA server to be scanned when
convenient. In this configuration, users can always access files without any delay. However, it is possible that after a user

Antivirus 445
modifies or creates a file, a second user might access the file before the file is scanned. If a virus was introduced to the file from
the first user, the second user will be able to access the infected file. Also, if an ICAP or CAVA server is unable to scan a file, the
file will still be accessible to users.
If OneFS ensures that files are scanned before they are opened, when a user attempts to download a file from the cluster,
OneFS first sends the file to an ICAP or CAVA server to be scanned. The file is not sent to the user until the scan is complete.
Scanning files before they are opened is more secure than scanning files after they are closed, because users can access only
scanned files. However, scanning files before they are opened requires users to wait for files to be scanned. You can also
configure OneFS to deny access to files that cannot be scanned by an ICAP or CAVA server, which can increase the delay. For
example, if no ICAP or CAVA servers are available, users will not be able to access any files until the servers become available
again.
If you configure OneFS to ensure that files are scanned before they are opened, it is recommended that you also configure
OneFS to ensure that files are scanned after they are closed. Scanning files as they are both opened and closed will not
necessarily improve security, but it will usually improve data availability when compared to scanning files only when they are
opened. If a user wants to access a file, the file may have already been scanned after the file was last modified, and will not
need to be scanned again if the antivirus server database has not been updated since the last scan.

NOTE: When scanning, do not exclude any file types (extensions). This ensures that any renamed files are caught.

Related tasks
Configure on-access scanning settings

ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

ICAP supports setting antivirus policies. You can use the OneFS Job Engine to create ICAP antivirus scanning policies that send
files from a specified directory to be scanned. ICAP antivirus policies can be run manually at any time, or configured to run
according to a schedule.
ICAP antivirus policies target a specific directory on the cluster. You can prevent an antivirus policy from sending certain files
within the specified root directory based on the size, name, or extension of the file. On-access scans also support filtering by
size, name, and extensions, using the isi antivirus icap settings command. ICAP antivirus policies do not target
snapshots. Only on-access scans include snapshots.

Related concepts
Managing ICAP antivirus policies

Related tasks
Create an antivirus policy

Individual file scanning using ICAP

You can send a specific file to an ICAP server to be scanned at any time.
If a virus is detected in a file but the ICAP server is unable to repair it, you can send the file to the ICAP server after the virus
database had been updated, and the ICAP server might be able to repair the file. You can also scan individual files to test the
connection between the cluster and ICAP servers.

WORM files and antivirus

WORM (write-once, read-many) files can be scanned and quarantined by antivirus software, but cannot be repaired or deleted
until their retention period expires.
The SmartLock software module enables you to identify a directory in OneFS as a WORM domain. All files within the WORM
domain will be committed to a WORM state, meaning that those files cannot be overwritten, modified, or deleted.
As with other files in OneFS, WORM files can be scanned for viruses and other security threats. However, because of their
protected read-only nature, WORM files cannot be repaired or deleted during an antivirus scan. If a WORM file is found to be a
threat, the file is quarantined.

446 Antivirus
When practical, you can initiate an antivirus scan on files before they are committed to a WORM state.

Antivirus scan reports

OneFS generates reports about antivirus scans. Each time that an ICAP antivirus policy is run, OneFS generates a report for
that policy. OneFS also generates a report every 24 hours that includes all on-access scans that occurred during the day.
Antivirus scan reports contain the following information:
● The time that the scan started.
● The time that the scan ended.
● The total number of files scanned.
● The total size of the files scanned.
● The total network traffic sent.
● The network throughput that was consumed by virus scanning.
● Whether the scan succeeded.
● The total number of infected files detected.
● The names of infected files.
● The threats associated with infected files.
● How OneFS responded to detected threats.

Related concepts
Managing antivirus reports

Related tasks
Configure antivirus report retention settings
View antivirus reports

ICAP servers
The number of ICAP servers that are required to support a PowerScale cluster depends on how virus scanning is configured, the
amount of data a cluster processes, and the processing power of the ICAP servers.
If you intend to scan files exclusively through anti-virus scan policies, it is recommended that you have a minimum of two ICAP
servers per cluster. If you intend to scan files on access, it is recommended that you have at least one ICAP server for each
node in the cluster.
If you configure more than one ICAP server for a cluster, ensure that the processing power of each ICAP server is relatively
equal. OneFS distributes files to the ICAP servers on a rotating basis, regardless of the processing power of the ICAP servers. If
one server is more powerful than another, OneFS does not send more files to the more powerful server.
CAUTION: When files are sent from the cluster to an ICAP server, they are sent across the network in
cleartext. Ensure that the path from the cluster to the ICAP server is on a trusted network. Authentication
is not supported. If authentication is required between an ICAP client and ICAP server, hop-by-hop Proxy
Authentication must be used.

Related concepts
Managing ICAP servers

Related tasks
Add and connect to an ICAP server

Antivirus 447
CAVA servers
CAVA uses industry-standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol versions 2 and 3 in a Microsoft Windows Server
environment. CAVA uses third-party antivirus software to identify and eliminate known viruses before they infect files on the
system.
You can use the CAVA calculator and the CAVA sizing tool to determine the number of antivirus servers that the system
requires. It is recommended that you start with one Common Event Enabler (CEE) server per two nodes and adjust the number
as needed. For information about the sizing tool and using CAVA on Windows platforms, see the chapter Monitoring and Sizing
the Antivirus Agent in the Dell Technologies latest version of the CEE document Using the Common Event Enabler on Windows.

ICAP threat responses

You can configure the system to repair, quarantine, or truncate any files that the ICAP server detects viruses in.
OneFS and ICAP servers react in one or more of the following ways when threats are detected:

Alert All threats that are detected cause an event to be generated in OneFS at the warning level, regardless of
the threat response configuration.
Repair The ICAP server attempts to repair the infected file before returning the file to OneFS.
Quarantine OneFS quarantines the infected file. A quarantined file cannot be accessed by any user. However, a
quarantined file can be removed from quarantine by the root user if the root user is connected to the
cluster through secure shell (SSH). If you back up your cluster through NDMP backup, quarantined files
remain quarantined when the files are restored. If you replicate quarantined files to another PowerScale
cluster, the quarantined files continue to be quarantined on the target cluster. However, transferring
anti-virus files attributes using SyncIQ is not supported.
NOTE: A potentially harmful file that was scanned and quarantined on the primary side is replicated
on the target side without the quarantine flag. This means that file is potentially accessible on the
target although read only. Workaround: Switch the scan policy to scan-on-read during failover.
Quarantines operate independently of access control lists (ACLs).
Truncate OneFS truncates the infected file. When a file is truncated, OneFS reduces the size of the file to zero
bytes to render the file harmless.

You can configure OneFS and ICAP servers to react in one of the following ways when threats are detected:

Repair or Attempts to repair infected files. If an ICAP server fails to repair a file, OneFS quarantines the file. If the
quarantine ICAP server repairs the file successfully, OneFS sends the file to the user. Repair or quarantine can be
useful if you want to protect users from accessing infected files while retaining all data on a cluster.
Repair or Attempts to repair infected files. If an ICAP server fails to repair a file, OneFS truncates the file. If the
truncate ICAP server repairs the file successfully, OneFS sends the file to the user. Repair or truncate can be
useful if you do not care about retaining all data on your cluster, and you want to free storage space.
However, data in infected files will be lost.
Alert only Only generates an event for each infected file. It is recommended that you do not apply this setting.
Repair only Attempts to repair infected files. Afterwards, OneFS sends the files to the user, whether or not the ICAP
server repaired the files successfully. It is recommended that you do not apply this setting. If you only
attempt to repair files, users will still be able to access infected files that cannot be repaired.
Quarantine Quarantines all infected files. It is recommended that you do not apply this setting. If you quarantine files
without attempting to repair them, you might deny access to infected files that could have been repaired.
Truncate Truncates all infected files. It is recommended that you do not apply this setting. If you truncate files
without attempting to repair them, you might delete data unnecessarily.

Related tasks
Configure antivirus threat response settings

448 Antivirus
CAVA threat responses
You configure CAVA threat responses in the antivirus software you use.
See your CAVA antivirus software documentation for information about how to configure your CAVA software to perform threat
handling.

Configuring global antivirus settings

You can configure global antivirus settings that are applied to all antivirus scans by default.

Exclude files from antivirus scans

You can exclude files from antivirus scans.
NOTE: The settings listed in this section apply to all antivirus scans. All settings apply to on-access scanning only, and
policy scan settings are per-policy under the Policy tab.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Settings.
2. Optional: To exclude files based on file size, in the Maximum File Scan Size area, specify the largest file size you want to
scan.
3. To exclude files based on file name, perform the following steps:
a. Select Enable filters.
b. In the Filter Matching area, specify whether you want to scan all files that match a specified filter or all files that do not
match a specified filter.
c. Specify one or more filters.
i. Click Add Filters.
ii. Specify the filter.
You can include the following wildcard characters:

Wildcard character Description

* Matches any string in place of the asterisk. For example,
specifying m* would match movies and m123.

[ ] Matches any characters contained in the brackets, or a

range of characters separated by a dash.
For example, specifying b[aei]t would match bat,
bet, and bit.
For example, specifying 1[4-7]2 would match 142,
152, 162, and 172.
You can exclude characters within brackets by following
the first bracket with an exclamation mark.
For example, specifying b[!ie] would match bat but
not bit or bet.
You can match a bracket within a bracket if it is either
the first or last character.
For example, specifying [[c]at would match cat and
[at.
You can match a dash within a bracket if it is either the
first or last character.
For example, specifying car[-s] would match cars
and car-.

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 Wildcard character Description

? Matches any character in place of the question mark.

For example, specifying t?p would match tap, tip, and
top.

iii. Click Add Filters.

4. Click Save Changes.

Configure on-access scanning settings

You can configure OneFS to automatically scan files as they are accessed by users. On-access scans operate independently of
antivirus policies.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Settings.
2. In the On-Access Scans area, specify whether you want files to be scanned as they are accessed.
● To require that all files be scanned before they are opened by a user, select Enable scan of files on open, and then
specify whether you want to allow access to files that cannot be scanned by selecting or clearing Enable file access
when scanning fails.
● To scan files after they are closed, select Enable scan of files on close.
3. In the All Scans area, in the Path Prefixes field, specify the directories that you want to apply on-access settings to.
4. Click Save Changes.

Related concepts
On-access scanning

Configure antivirus threat response settings

You can configure how OneFS responds to detected threats.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Settings.
2. In the Action On Detection area, specify how you want OneFS to react to potentially infected files.

Related concepts
ICAP threat responses

Configure antivirus report retention settings

You can configure how long OneFS retains antivirus reports before automatically deleting them.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Settings.
2. In the Reports area, specify how long you want OneFS to keep reports.

Related concepts
Antivirus scan reports

Enable or disable antivirus scanning

You can enable or disable all antivirus scanning.
This procedure is available only through the web administration interface.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Summary.
2. In the Service area, select or clear Enable Antivirus service.

450 Antivirus
Managing ICAP servers
Before you can send files to be scanned on an ICAP server, you must configure OneFS to connect to the server. You can test,
modify, and remove an ICAP server connection. You can also temporarily disconnect and reconnect to an ICAP server.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Add and connect to an ICAP server

You can add and connect to an ICAP server. After a server is added, OneFS can send files to the server to be scanned for
viruses.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP Servers.
2. In the ICAP Servers area, click Add an ICAP Server.
3. Optional: To enable the ICAP server, click Enable ICAP Server.
4. In the Create ICAP Server dialog box, in the ICAP Server URL field, type the IPv4 or IPv6 address of an ICAP server.
5. Optional: To add a description of the server, type text into the Description field.
6. Click Add Server.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Test an ICAP server connection

You can test the connection between the OneFS and an ICAP server. This procedure is available only through the web
administration interface.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP Servers.
2. In the ICAP Servers table, in the row for the ICAP server, click View / Edit.
If the cluster is connected to the ICAP server, in the Details area, active will appear in the Status field.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Modify ICAP connection settings

You can modify the IP address and optional description of ICAP server connections.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP Servers.
2. In the ICAP Servers table, in the row for an ICAP server, click View / Edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Modify settings, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Related tasks
Test an ICAP server connection

Antivirus 451
Temporarily disconnect from an ICAP server
If you want to prevent OneFS from sending files to an ICAP server, but want to retain the ICAP server connection settings, you
can temporarily disconnect from the ICAP server.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP Servers.
2. In the ICAP Servers table, in the row for an ICAP server, click View / Edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Clear the Enable ICAP Server box and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Related tasks
Reconnect to an ICAP server

Reconnect to an ICAP server

You can reconnect to an ICAP server that you have temporarily disconnected from.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP > Servers.
2. In the ICAP Servers table, in the row for an ICAP server, click View / Edit.
3. Click Edit.
4. Select Enable ICAP Server, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Related tasks
Temporarily disconnect from an ICAP server

Remove an ICAP server

You can permanently disconnect from the ICAP server.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP > Servers.
2. In the ICAP Servers table, in the row for an ICAP server, click Delete.

Related concepts
ICAP servers

Related tasks
Add and connect to an ICAP server

Managing CAVA servers

To enable scanning files on a CAVA server, you create (or modify) the CAVA server configuration.
Each node can have multiple connections to the CAVA server. The number of connections is based on an internal algorithm.

452 Antivirus
Add and connect to a CAVA server
You can add and connect to a CAVA server. After a server is added, OneFS can send files to the server to be scanned for
viruses.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Servers area, click Add server.
3. Optional: To enable the CAVA server, click Enable this server checkbox.
4. In the Create CAVA antivirus server dialog box, in the Server URL field, type the IPv4 or IPv6 address or URL of a CAVA
server.
5. In the Server name field, type the name of the server.
6. Click Add Server.

List or view CAVA servers

You can list or view the connection to a CAVA server.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Servers table, in the row for an CAVA server, click View / Edit.

Modify CAVA connection settings

You can modify the server name and IP address of CAVA server connections.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Servers table, in the row for an CAVA server, click View / Edit.
3. Modify settings, and then click Save Changes.

Disable connection to a CAVA server

You can disable the connection to a CAVA server.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Servers area, next to the server to disable, click View/Edit.
3. Optional: To disable the CAVA server, uncheck the Enable this server checkbox.
4. Click Save changes.

Delete connection to a CAVA server

You can delete the connection to a CAVA server.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Servers area, next to the server to disable, click Delete.
3. On the confirmation dialog, click Delete.

Add a job to a CAVA server

You can add a job to a CAVA server. CAVA jobs are similar to ICAP policies: you use them to configure and manage antivirus
scans.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Jobs area, click the Add job button.
3. Optional: Add a name in the Job name field and make other configuration settings.
4. Click Add job.

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View an IP pool in a CAVA server
You can add an IP pool to a CAVA server. The purpose of creating an IP pool is to facilitate the connections from anti-virus
applications. This dedicated IP pools should only be used by the anti-virus applications. To achieve that, Dell EMC recommends
the IP ranges in this IP pool must be exclusive and only available to the CAVA servers.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Settings area, view the IP Pool field.
3. Optional: Note: To add an IP pool, click Cluster management > Network configuration.

Create an Active Directory authentication provider for the

AvVendor access zone
All the anti-virus application servers and PowerScale cluster should be in the same domain.
See the section Managing Active Directory Providers in the Authentication chapter of this guide for details about how to join
and Active Directory domain.
1. Click Access > Authentication providers > Active Directory.
2. In the Active Directory providers area, click Join a domain.
3. In the Add an Active Directory provider dialog box, check the Enable authentication and identity managemnet
through authentication provider checkbox.
4. Click Join.

Update the role in the access zone

The CHECK$ share is a hidden share that allows access to all files on the cluster. It is used exclusively by the antivirus software
running on a Windows server. Since the CHECK$ share allows access to all files on the cluster, any user accessing the share
must have a unique privilege. The hidden ISI_PRIV_AV_VENDOR privilege within AVVendor role will be added to give the user
account used by the antivirus software access to the CHECK$ share.
1. Click Access > Memberships and roles > Roles.
2. In the Roles area, click the name of the user to update and click View/Edit.
3. Optional: In the View role details dialog, click Edit role.
4. Assign the user to the role AVVendor.
5. Click Save changes.

Scan CloudPool files in a CAVA server

You can scan files in CloudPools using a CAVA configuration. Note that by default, scanning of CloudPools files is disabled to
prevent the unexpected cost of file callback.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > CAVA.
2. In the Settings area, next to the scan zone, click the View/Edit button.
3. In the Scan zone details area, click the Scan cloudpools files checkbox.

Create an antivirus policy

You can create an antivirus policy that causes specific files to be scanned for viruses each time the policy is run.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Policies.
2. Click Create an Antivirus Policy.
3. Optional: To enable the policy, click Enable antivirus policy.
4. In the Policy Name field, type a name for the antivirus policy.
5. Optional: To specify an optional description of the policy, in the Description field, type a description.
6. In the Paths field, specify the directory that you want to scan.

454 Antivirus
 Optionally, click Add another directory path to specify additional directories.
7. In the Recursion Depth area, specify how much of the specified directories you want to scan.
● To scan all subdirectories of the specified directories, click Full recursion.
● To scan a limited number of subdirectories of the specified directories, click Limit depth and then specify how many sub
directories you want to scan.
8. Optional: To scan all files regardless of whether OneFS has marked files as having been scanned, or if global settings specify
that certain files should not be scanned, select Enable force run of policy regardless of impact policy.
9. Optional: To modify the default impact policy of the antivirus scans, from the Impact Policy list, select a new impact policy.
10. In the Schedule area, specify whether you want to run the policy according to a schedule or manually.
Scheduled policies can also be run manually at any time.

Run the policy only manually. Click Manual

Run the policy according to a schedule. a. Click Scheduled.
b. Specify how often you want the policy to run.
11. Click Create Policy.

Related concepts
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

Managing ICAP antivirus policies

Antivirus policies are specific to ICAP. You can modify and delete ICAP antivirus policies. You can also temporarily disable
antivirus policies if you want to retain the policy but do not want to scan files.

Related concepts
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

Modify an antivirus policy

You can modify an antivirus policy.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Policies.
2. In the Antivirus Policies table, in the row of the antivirus policy that you want to modify, click View / Edit.
3. In the View Antivirus Policy Details dialog box, click Edit.
4. Modify settings, and then click Save Changes.

Related concepts
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

Delete an antivirus policy

You can delete an antivirus policy.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Policies.
2. In the Antivirus Policies table, in the row for the antivirus policy you want to delete, click More > Delete.

Related concepts
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

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Enable or disable an antivirus policy
You can temporarily disable antivirus policies if you want to retain the policy but do not want to scan files.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Policies.
2. In the Antivirus Policies table, in the row for the antivirus policy you want to enable or disable, click More > Enable Policy
or More > Disable Policy.

Related concepts
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

View antivirus policies

You can view antivirus policies.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Policies.
2. In the Antivirus Policies table, view antivirus policies.

Related concepts
ICAP Antivirus policy scanning

Managing antivirus scans

You can scan multiple files for viruses by manually running an antivirus policy, or scan an individual file without an antivirus
policy. You can also stop antivirus scans.

Scan a file
You can manually scan an individual file for viruses.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi antivirus scan command.
The following command scans the /ifs/data/virus_file file for viruses:

isi antivirus scan /ifs/data/virus_file

Manually run an ICAP antivirus policy

You can manually run an ICAP antivirus policy at any time.
This procedure is available only through the web administration interface.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > ICAP > Policies.
2. In the Antivirus Policies table, in the row for a policy, click More > Run Policy.

Stop a running antivirus scan

You can stop a running antivirus scan. This procedure is available only through the web administration interface.
1. Click Cluster Management > Job Operations > Job Summary.
2. In the Active Jobs table, in the row with type AVScan, click More > Cancel Running Job.

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Managing antivirus threats
You can repair, quarantine, or truncate files in which threats are detected. If you think that a quarantined file is no longer a
threat, you can rescan the file or remove the file from quarantine.

Manually quarantine a file

You can quarantine a file to prevent the file from being accessed by users.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Detected Threats.
2. In the Antivirus Threat Reports table, in the row of a file, click More > Quarantine File .

Related concepts
ICAP threat responses

Rescan a file
You can rescan a file for viruses if, for example, you believe that a file is no longer a threat.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the isi antivirus scan command.
For example, the following command scans /ifs/data/virus_file:

isi antivirus scan /ifs/data/virus_file

Related concepts
ICAP threat responses

Remove a file from quarantine

You can remove a file from quarantine if, for example, you believe that the file is no longer a threat.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Detected Threats.
2. In the Antivirus Threat Reports table, in the row of a file, click More > Restore File.

Related concepts
ICAP threat responses

Manually truncate a file

If a threat is detected in a file, and the file is irreparable and no longer needed, you can manually truncate the file.
This procedure is available only through the command-line interface (CLI).
1. Open a secure shell (SSH) connection to any node in the cluster and log in.
2. Run the truncate command on a file.
The following command truncates the /ifs/data/virus_file file:

truncate -s 0 /ifs/data/virus_file

Related concepts
ICAP threat responses

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View threats
You can view files that have been identified as threats by an ICAP server.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Detected Threats.
2. In the Antivirus Threat Reports table, view potentially infected files.

Related concepts
ICAP threat responses

Related references
Antivirus threat information

Antivirus threat information

You can view information about the antivirus threats that are reported by an ICAP server.

Name Displays the name of the detected threat as it is recognized by the ICAP server.
Path Displays the file path of the potentially infected file.
Remediation Indicates how OneFS responded to the file when the threat was detected.
Policy Displays the ID of the antivirus policy that caused the threat to be detected.
Detected Displays the time that the threat was detected.
Actions Displays actions that can be performed on the file.

Managing antivirus reports

You can view antivirus reports through the web administration interface. You can also view events that are related to antivirus
activity.

View antivirus reports

You can view antivirus reports.
1. Click Data Protection > Antivirus > Reports.
2. In the Antivirus Scan Reports table, in the row for a report, click View Details.

Related concepts
Antivirus scan reports

View antivirus events

You can view events that relate to antivirus activity.
1. Click Cluster Management > Events and Alerts > Events.
2. In the Event Groups table, view all events.
All events related to antivirus scans are classified as warnings. The following events are related to antivirus activities:
AVScan Infected File Found
A threat was detected by an antivirus scan. These events refer to specific reports on the Antivirus
Reports page but do not provide threat details.
No ICAP Servers available
OneFS is unable to communicate with any ICAP servers.

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ICAP Server Misconfigured, Unreachable or Unresponsive
OneFS is unable to communicate with an ICAP server.

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 33
File System Explorer
This section contains the following topics:
Topics:
• File System Explorer overview
• Browse the file system
• Create a directory
• Modify file and directory properties
• View file and directory properties
• File and directory properties

File System Explorer overview

The File System Explorer is a web-based interface that enables you to manage the content stored on your cluster. You can
use the File System Explorer to navigate the PowerScale file system (/ifs), add directories, and manage file and directory
properties including data protection, I/O optimization, and UNIX permissions.
PowerScale file system directory permissions are initially set to allow full access for all users. Any user can delete any file,
regardless of the permissions on the individual file. Depending on your environment, you should establish appropriate permission
restrictions through the File System Explorer.
File System Explorer supports access zones. By default, the root user and sysadmin have access to the top-level access zone,
System (/ifs). Other users can be restricted to specific access zones—for example, /ifs/home.
You can view and configure file and directory properties from within Windows clients that are connected to the cluster.
However, because Windows and UNIX permissions differ from one another, you must be careful not to make any unwanted
changes that affect file and directory access.

Browse the file system

You can browse the PowerScale file system, /ifs, through the File system explorer.
1. Click File System > File system explorer.
2. View files and directories.
You can click on a directory to view its contents.

Create a directory
You can create a directory in the /ifs directory tree through the File system explorer.
1. Click File System > File system explorer.
2. Navigate to the directory that you want to add the directory to.
3. Click Create Directory.
4. In the Create a directory dialog box, in the Directory name field, enter a name for the directory.
5. In the User field, enter the name of the user, or browse for the user.
6. In the Group field, enter the name of the group the user belongs to or browse for the group.
7. In the Permissions area, assign permissions to the directory.
8. In the File name limits area, from the Restrict name length list, select one of the following options:
● Inherited (255 characters, 255 bytes)
● Restricted (255 characters, 255 bytes)

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 ● Full length (255 characters, 1024 bytes)
9. Click Create directory.

Modify file and directory properties

You can modify file and directory properties through File system explorer.
1. Click File System > File system explorer.
2. Navigate to the file or directory that you want to modify.
3. In the row of the file or directory, click View / Edit.
4. Modify the file or directory properties, and then click Save.

View file and directory properties

You can view file and directory properties through the File system explorer.
1. Click File System > File system explorer.
2. Navigate to the file or directory that you want to view.
3. In the row of the file or directory, click View / Edit.

File and directory properties

The following file and directory properties are displayed in the File System Explorer:

Properties
Path Displays the absolute path of the file or directory.
File Size Displays the logical size of the file or directory.
Space Used Displays the physical size of the file or directory.
Last Modified Displays the time that the file or directory was last modified.
Last Accessed Displays the time that the file or directory was last accessed.

UNIX Permissions
User Displays the permissions assigned to the owner of the file or directory.
Group Displays the permissions assigned to the group of the file or directory.
Others Displays the permissions assigned to other users for the file or directory.

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