Redirect c$ on a vfiler

[ukznmcl12]

Hello,

We are currently running Quest Storage Manager in our environment. Unfortunatly this does not play nicely with our vfiler. The reason is that it is trying to copy a licence file onto \\VFILERNAME\C$ which is the root of the vfiler. We need to make sure that \\VFILERNAME\C$ redirects to the volume where data is held i.e. /vol/voldata1 rather than just / which is currentyl sits in.

The steps to do this are:

Connect to the filer using putty

Type in vfiler context vfilername (to switch to the vfiler)

Cifs shares –delete c$

Cifs shares –add c$ /vol/lvoldata1

Can anybody envisage any problems which performing the above activities on the vfiler? I am very nervous about doing this as i am not sure if it will break anything else!

Cheers

Neil

[shaunjurr]

Hi,

Basically the C$ share is just there to make things sort of look like a real filer (windows server) and to give access to a few files for administration.  You already know that you can point it pretty much anywhere you want to point it.  There are only a few log files written there by the system and it doesn't use the CIFS share for this. The exports, nsswitch.conf, resolv.conf files are things that you probably want to keep access to, so creating some sort of <admin>$ share is probably a good idea. I guess the ETC$ share is still going to get most of that

If you use any of the SnapManager products, they _might_ want to write to a file there (perhaps for thin-privisioning), but otherwise I know of no reason that the c$ share has to point exactly where it does, but I guess I could be mistaken. You could just watch your logs for problems and move it back if you see anything.  It won't affect the rest of your cifs shares. I personally have moved them before with no consequences.

[scottgelb]

Good question.  The key thing to differentiate is what "/" shares to on vfiler0 and a vfiler.  On vfiler0 (Physical System) a cifs share to "/" is to the volume marked as root.  In a vFiler (Virtual Filer), the "/" is a different virtual context that can't be changed (but of course we can change where C$ points).  "/" on a vFiler unit is to the top level of the vFiler and inside that share you will see the "vol" share.  Inside "vol" you will see EVERY volume in the vFiler.  This is useful for most customers since the admin can get cifs access to any volume inside the vfiler via this context.

So, if you don't want to have ALL volumes viewable from the C$ share and if you want the vfiler0 equivalent to only the root volume, you can delete C$ in the vfiler then recreate the share to the vfiler root volume specifically and you will be good to go (probably not the data volume you listed unless you made the data volume vfiler root... you can check with "vfiler status -a" to see he root volume). 

By deleting C$ in the vFiler you won't be destroying or hurting anything.  The "/" target of C$ will always be available to share again... even share under another name and it should have the same "vol" viewable context to all volumes.