Has anyone ever setup Widelinks in a CIFS only environment?
We have a FAS 3070 cluster, and I'm trying to re-direct users from a volume on one head to a volume on a different head (or possibly even on the same head). I was able to do this using NFS, but our NFS license was temporary, so to create any new ones, I need to do it using CIFS only.
I've read through the following documents, but they have been no help:
About Widlinks Entries: http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/ontap/rel723/html/ontap/filesag/7multi53.htm
Definitive Guide to Setting up Widelinks (that's debatable): https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb7368
A more detailed explanation of what I'm trying to do:
We have several large file systems, over 2 TB each. The users need to be able to go to a single directory within an already established DFS root (which I'll call \\Domain.com\DFSRoot) and see each of these file systems as a subdirectory of that single directory. So, I've created a DFS link within the DFS root... we'll call it TopDirectory that points to a CIFS share/volume on Filer A with the same name. Using NFS, I had to mount that directory to a Unix machine along with all the volumes I wanted to appear as a subdirectory (I'll call them Volume01 - Volume10, and they each reside on Filer B). From the Unix machine, I then ran the command ln -s /mnt/Volume01 /mnt/TopDirectory/Volume01 for each of the volumes that I want to appear as subdirectories. This created a symbolic link for each of the directories within the TopDirectory volume.
Then I had to edit the /etc/symlinks.translations file on Filer A so that the symbolic links would point to a share on Filer B. So, the entries would look like this:
Widelink /mnt/Volume01/* \\FilerB\Volume01\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume02/* \\FilerB\Volume02*\
Widelink /mnt/Volume03/* \\FilerB\Volume03\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume04/* \\FilerB\Volume04\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume05/* \\FilerB\Volume05\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume06/* \\FilerB\Volume06\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume07/* \\FilerB\Volume07\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume08/* \\FilerB\Volume08\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume09/* \\FilerB\Volume09\*
Widelink /mnt/Volume10/* \\FilerB\Volume10\*
This works as advertised. When I go through DFS to \\Domain.com\DFSRoot\TopDirectory I see all ten directories and can go into them to see their contents.
My question now is, how can I create the symbolic links if I don't have an NFS license? I've been told that I can use ln.exe to create them, but I can't get it to work. The copy of ln.exe that I have was apparently created by NetApp, but their help desk says they do not support it. Apparently there is a version that came with Windows Resource Kit, but I think it was an older version. I think it was replaced with linkd.exe, which I've tried, but I can't get that to work either. I've tested linkd by creating a link on windows server to a different directory, but if I try to use a UNC path, it fails.
Can anyone tell me how to do this, or if it can even be done?
Thanks!