Planning for vFiler creation

Prerequisites for vFiler creation

The following prerequisites must be met before you can create a vFiler:

You must create the units of storage (qtrees or volumes) before creating the vFiler.
The storage unit for vFiler configuration information must be writable. It must not be a read-only file system, such as the destination volume or qtree in a SnapMirror relationship.
The IP address used by the vFiler must not be configured when you create the vFiler.

Storage guidelines

When deciding which storage units to assign to vFilers, remember the following guidelines:

The first storage unit assigned to the vFiler contains the vFiler configuration information. It is called the primary storage unit. Although you can remove storage units from a vFiler at any time after the vFiler is created, the primary storage unit must remain for as long as the vFiler exists.
The primary storage unit has the same security characteristics it had before it was transferred to the vFiler. When you create a new vFiler, C$ share-level permissions are restricted to administrators only, but file-level security is not modified. The vFiler administrator can set more restrictive file-level permissions.
If the qtree or volume to be used as the primary storage unit contains an /etc directory, the data in the directory is lost after you add the qtree or volume to a vFiler. Data in qtrees and volumes used as other storage units is preserved.
A volume assigned to a vFiler must not be the filer's root volume. You can, however, assign qtrees in the root volume to a vFiler.
If the vFiler administrator needs to create qtrees on the vFiler, assign volumes instead of qtrees to the vFiler. This is because qtrees can be created only at the root of a volume.
If, in the future, you want to move from one filer to another the disks that are used for the vFiler's storage, assign volumes, not qtrees, to the vFiler.
When managing NFS exports, CIFS shares, quotas, and options, vFiler administrators need to enter the complete path names of the storage resources used by the vFilers in commands and configuration files. Therefore, choose volume and qtree names appropriately, so that you can share with the vFiler administrators the complete path names beginning with filer_name:/vol/vol_name.

Naming guidelines

When deciding the vFiler name, remember the following guidelines:

The name can contain up to 31 alphanumeric ASCII characters.
The name can contain the dash (-) and the underscore (_) characters, but the dash character must not be the first character.
The name is case-insensitive.
The name vFiler0 is reserved.

Language guideline

vFiler administrators need to edit the /etc/quotas and /etc/usermap.cfg files for their vFilers. These files support Unicode and root volume UNIX encoding. To ensure that vFiler administrators who do not use Unicode-capable editors can edit the files, create vFilers on a filer whose root volume language can be used for editing.

Quotas guideline

Creating a vFiler involves changing the ownership of a volume or qtree from the hosting filer to a specified vFiler. This change requires that quotas be turned off for the affected volume. You can turn quotas back on for the volume after the vFiler is created.

Clustering considerations

Remember the following considerations for establishing vFilers on a cluster:

You can create up to 32 vFilers on each member of a cluster, depending on the memory capacity of the hosting filers. See Adjusting the vFiler limit for details.
Both members of a cluster must have a vFiler license to take over its partner with a vFiler license.
The vFilers hosted by the filers of the cluster are created and configured independently. That is, each filer can host a different number of vFilers, and the vFiler configuration on the filers can be different from each other.
In takeover mode, the functioning filer takes over all vFilers created on the failed filer. These vFilers include the vFilers you create and vFiler0. Therefore, for vFilers on the failed filer to work correctly after the takeover, each network interface used by a vFiler in a cluster must have a partner interface.

SAN considerations

When you create vFilers on a storage area network (SAN), keep the following LUN and iSCSI considerations in mind:

FCP LUNs and initiator groups are supported only on the hosting filer, not on vFilers.
iSCSI LUNs and initiator groups are supported on all vFilers and managed separately for each vFiler.
When you create a vFiler on a filer on which iSCSI is licensed, the iSCSI service is automatically started on the vFiler.
Note
If iSCSI is licensed on the hosting filer and the storage to be allocated to the vFiler contains LUNs, unmap the LUNs.
Starting a vFiler starts iSCSI packet processing for that vFiler.
Stopping a vFiler stops iSCSI packet processing for that vFiler.