topic netapp cifs share aliases in ONTAP Discussions

netapp cifs share aliases

FelixZhou — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:24:25 GMT

we are merging cifs servers to single SVM, can some one share experience how can we make alias for each data share, can different LIF be used for each share/alias?

thanks

Re: netapp cifs share aliases

Ontapforrum — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:58:32 GMT

Hi,

If you want to have separate LIFs, then aliases may not be a solution for your case. However, you can create 2 separate LIFs having separte hostnames accessing the CIFS server using different junction paths.

1) Create a CIFS server on SVM : Only one CIFS server is allowed per SVM.

2) Create two separate LIFs : Eiter on the same physical port or on a separate physical port, it's your call.

In the following example, I have one SVM with CIFS server, and have created 2 separate LIFs on separate physical ports and have give it IPs.

LIF 1: SVM_CIFS_cifs_hr_lif1 (IP:215)= e0c
LIF 2: SVM_CIFS_cifs_fin_lif2 (IP:217)= e0d

3) In DNS, and create 2 A Host records:

CIFS server = SVM_CIFS
Hostname = cifs_hr, 192.168.0.215
Hostname = cifs_finance, 192.168.0.217

Run gpupdate /force

4) You can create a single or multiple volums, in this example : I have one volume and 2 separate folders(shares)

volume = vol_CIFS
foldrers = 1) cifs_finance & 2) cifs_hr

5) Create shares with following Junction / mount_paths:

share Name = cifs_hr
Junction = /vol_CIFS/cifs_hr

share Name = cifs_finance
Junction = /vol_CIFS/cifs_finance

6) Access them using separate CIFS

\\cifs_hr\cifs_hr
\\cifs_hr\cifs_finance

7) Run the following command, it shows the shares accessed by 2 separate LIFs.

ONTAP96::> cifs session show -fields address,netbios-name,lif-address,user-type
node vserver session-id connection-id lif-address address user-type netbios-name
---------- -------- -------------------- ------------- ------------- ------------ ----------- ------------
ONTAP96-01 SVM_CIFS 15017252957466918943 1707425369 192.168.0.215 192.168.0.10 domain-user cifs_hr
ONTAP96-01 SVM_CIFS 15017252957466918944 1707425370 192.168.0.217 192.168.0.10 domain-user cifs_finance
2 entries were displayed.

ONTAP96::>

Thanks!

Re: netapp cifs share aliases

FelixZhou — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 02:18:27 GMT

thanks for your reply. this is a good example. if one LIF will be used, can you please give me another example for how to make aliases?

Re: netapp cifs share aliases

Ontapforrum — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 08:54:21 GMT

Aliases will be:

Having one LIF: Example:

LIF1: 10.10.10.1

Host: cifs_hr
Alisases: cifs_fina
Aliasees: cifs_engg

Re: netapp cifs share aliases

TMACMD — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 15:16:12 GMT

Or you could go a little more simple:

1. setup DDNS and let DNS round-robin between the interfaces (With most modern DDNS instances, you may need to tell ONTAP to use Secure DDNS for it to actually work...and make sure you have both forward and reverse lookup zones)

2. setup ONTAP - ON-BOX - DNS load balancing.

https://kb.netapp.com/support/s/article/ka31A00000012CGQAY/how-to-set-up-dns-load-balancing-in-clustered-data-ontap

https://docs.netapp.com/ontap-9/topic/com.netapp.doc.dot-cm-nmg/GUID-2A6B1345-0C1D-4E3D-B01B-ED724A69D376.html