Hi,
Before answering your querry let me give you a short description of how it works :
One can create multiple vfilers on a single filer (base filer).
The idea behind this is something like this, say the admin of the base filer creates 4 volumes and creates 2 vfilers. Then he assigned 2 volumes to each vfilers.
and given this two vfiler to two different department. Once volume assign to vfiler then base filer admin dont have any control on those volume.
now it is the resposibility of those vfilers owner to do all management work on those volume like taking snapshot,restore etc.
If vfiler owner need one extra volume then he/she has to raise the request to the base filer admin to create a volume of desired size and assign it to the vfiler.
Vfiler owner can not create volume of it own.
Now lets get back to your Questions:
-In order to perform SMVI backups/restores,does vcenter needs to access the vfiler IP interface?
Just add vfiler's ip in the setup page of smvi in the storage section. There is no need to add the ip of base filer also.
-Can this be accessed from base vfiler?
I dont think i got the point here. But as mentioned earlier once volume assign to the vfiler base filer has no control over it.
-If not directly,Is there any way to use pre and post scripts in vcenter to provide access to SMVI from some thing like vfiler run commands?
Again not very clear what directly you want to access. But your pre and post script need to be in the "smvi\server\script" folder. These scripts are triggeres by smvi.
Vcenter has got nothing to do with those script. what vfiler command you want to run from the script?
What are my options of using SMVI and using base vfiler for creating backups and restores?
As mentioned earlier if you are using vfiler then smvi setup page just mention vfiler ip it will work.
Base vfiler (vfiler0) or base filer don't require at all.
hope this help.
thnx,
kaushik
