topic Re: Snapshot folders in ONTAP Discussions

Snapshot folders

jensnetapp — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:25:10 GMT

Hi all

I have just updated to ONTAP 7.3.1.

If I choose to hide the ~snapshot folder on my CIFS share, it is naturally NOT visable to users.

But I seem to remember (before I upgraded from ONTAP 7.3.0) that I still could type the path manually using a "Run" command (for instance \\tknas1\shares\,snapshot, and the snapshot folders would be visable to me, even tough they were hidden,

Can anyone confirm this?

Is it by the way possible to delegate access control to these snapshot-folders for different users?

Best regards

Jens Nielsen

Re: Snapshot folders

kris_boeckx — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:58:53 GMT

Hi,

As far as I know, this is not possible. We didn't want that our users could see the ~snapshot folder and made it hidden.

In case of a file restore, we use a script the unhide the ~snapshot, do the restore and hide the ~snapshot again.

The windows command to enable the ~snapshot is:

rsh.exe <filername> -l <password> vol options <volumename> nosnapdir off

The windows command to enable the ~snapshot is:

rsh.exe <filername> -l <password> vol options <volumename> nosnapdir on

Concerning the security: no access delegation is possible. Same access is applied to the ~snapshot as it is in the "real" location.

Greetings,

Boeckx Kris

Re: Snapshot folders

radek_kubka — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:59:53 GMT

Hi Jens,

The "hiding" of snapshots directory is very poor, indeed.

In fact using just Windows Explorer & typing \~snapshot at the end of the share path will reveal the content of the "hidden" directory.

I am not aware of any hack / workaround which can give any improvement here.

Regards,
Radek

Re: Snapshot folders

adamfox — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:23:44 GMT

Kris' suggestion (using the nosnapdir vol option) will make it impossible for anyone to access the snapshots. The "hide" option does just that..hides it. So you have options either way there.