Skip to main content
Sign Out

Welcome to Dell

My Account
  • Place orders quickly and easily
  • View orders and track your shipping status
  • Enjoy members-only rewards and discounts
  • Create and access a list of your products
  • Manage your Dell EMC sites, products, and product-level contacts using Company Administration.
Sign In Create an Account Dell Financial Services Premier Sign In Partner Program Sign In
Contact Us

Your Dell.com Carts

Dell PowerStore Configuring Multiprotocol File Sharing

PDF

About multiprotocol file sharing in PowerStore

To access a datafile shared by a NAS server over the network, host clients mainly use two file protocols: SMB and NFS. The SMB protocol is used mainly by Windows clients, and the NFS protocol is used mainly by UNIX clients. The NFS and SMB protocols have many differences, including those described in the following table:

Table 1. Main differences between NFS and SMB protocolsThe table lists differences between NFS and SMB protocols in various policies and security features.
Feature NFS SMB
User Identification Uses a User Identifier (UID) and Group Identifier (GID). Uses a security Identifier (SID).
Lock policy NFSv3 range locks are advisory, and NFSv4 range locks are advisory or mandatory (default). SMB range locks are mandatory.
User authentication Authentication is handled by one of the following:
  • A previous local login to another UNIX system
  • A UNIX Directory Service (NIS or LDAP), which looks up a user's UID/GID
  • Local password and group files, which look up a user's UID/GID
Authentication is handled by Active Directory, which looks up the SID of a user. This requires NTP and DNS.
Security rules Uses the UNIX credential that is associated with the authenticated user to check mode bits (NFSv3) or to check access rights in the NFSv4 ACL. Uses the Windows credential that is associated with the authenticated user to check the SMB Access ACL.
Rename policy Renaming a component of an open file is allowed. Renaming a component of an open file is not allowed.

PowerStore supports a mixed NFS and SMB environment by providing simultaneous access to the same data for both NFS (v3 and v4) and SMB. Multiprotocol is enabled by default and does not require additional configuration. You can configure a NAS server, create a file system off this NAS server, and then create both NFS and SMB shares on that file system.

To configure multiprotocol functionality, you must add the NAS server to a Windows Active Directory domain and configure a UNIX Directory Service (LDAP or NIS) or a local password and group files for the NAS server, or both. To use LDAP, it must adhere to the IDMU, RFC2307, or RFC2307bis schemas. Some examples include AD LDAP with IDMU, iPlanet, OpenLDAP. The LDAP server must be configured properly to provide UIDs for each user. For example, on IDMU, the administrator must go in to the properties of each user and add a UID to the UNIX Attributes tab.

The usernames in an NFS environment and in an SMB environment must match character for character. If there are discrepancies in the usernames, you can configure a user-mapping file (ntxmap) to map each NFS name to the corresponding SMB name, and each SMB name to the corresponding NFS name. You can also configure default UNIX and Windows account names. The system uses the default Windows account name when it cannot find a match for an SMB name on NFS, and the default UNIX account name when it cannot find a match for an NFS name on SMB.

NOTE:When multiple users use the default accounts, quotas may be impacted.

When you configure a file system that supports multiprotocol access, you must also select an access policy to manage user access control for the file system. For detailed information about how security and file access works in a multiprotocol environment, see Deep dive: File system security and access in a multiprotocol environment.

The following figures show the high-level steps that are required for configuring multiprotocol file sharing.

Figure 1. High-level steps for configuring multiprotocol file sharing
A three step flow chart for configuring multiprotocol file sharing
Figure 2. High-level steps for configuring multiprotocol file sharing (continued). The flowchart on the left outlines the necessary steps for creating a NAS server. The flowchart on the right outlines the necessary steps for configuring a file system.
The flowchart on the left outlines the necessary steps for creating a NAS server. The flowchart on the right outlines the necessary steps for configuring a file system.

Rate this content

Accurate
Useful
Easy to understand
Was this article helpful?
0/3000 characters
  Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
  Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
  Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
  Please select whether the article was helpful or not.
  Comments cannot contain these special characters: <>()\