Understanding volumes and qtrees on vFilers

Effects of taking a vFiler volume offline

If you take a volume offline and that volume is used for vFiler storage:

All CIFS shares and NFS exports in the volume are deactivated.
If the volume contains the /etc directory for a vFiler, the vFiler enters the stopped state.
After you put the volume back online, the vFiler starts running again.
All LUNs become unavailable.

Changes required after volumes are renamed

After you rename a volume used for vFiler storage, the vFiler administrator should change the path names used in the vFiler's /etc/exports file accordingly. In addition, the vFiler administrator should verify that CIFS shares and quotas are configured properly.

Who can create qtrees

You can create qtrees only if your vFiler owns the volume containing the qtree. That is, as the hosting filer administrator, you can create a qtree in a volume owned by vFiler0, but not in volumes owned by other vFilers. A vFiler administrator can create a qtree in a volume that is a storage unit of the vFiler.

Example of creating a qtree on vFiler0

The /vol/vol0 volume is owned by vFiler0. You can use the following command to create a qtree in the /vol/vol0 volume:

qtree create /vol/vol0/qtree1

Example of creating a qtree on a vFiler

The /vol/vol1 volume is owned by vFiler1. The administrator for vFiler1 can use the following command to create a qtree in the /vol/vol1 volume:

rsh vfiler1 qtree create /vol/vol1/qtree2

Who can change qtree security styles and oplock settings

You can change the security style and oplock setting for a qtree or volume only if you are the owner of the qtree or volume. Therefore:

If a vFiler owns a volume, you can change the security styles or oplock settings for the volume and all qtrees on the volume from the vFiler.
If a vFiler owns qtrees on a volume owned by the hosting filer, you can change the security styles or oplock settings from the vFiler only for the qtrees the vFiler owns.
If the hosting filer owns a volume that contains qtrees assigned to vFilers, you can change the security styles or oplock settings from the hosting filer only for the qtrees the hosting filer owns.

Differences in qtree command output

The qtree command output is different in the following ways depending on where you enter the command:

If you enter the qtree command from the hosting filer, the command displays information about all qtrees on the filer, whether the qtrees are owned by the hosting filer or vFilers.
If you enter the qtree command from a vFiler, the command displays information about qtrees on that vFiler only. This applies also to vFiler0; that is, if you enter the qtree command from vFiler0, the command displays information about qtrees owned by vFiler0.
If you enter the qtree command without arguments from a vFiler, a qtree that is the destination qtree for SnapMirror is shown as read_only in the Status column.

Command for displaying all qtrees and the owning vFilers

Although you can use the qtree command from the hosting filer to display all qtrees on the filer, the list of qtrees in the output is not grouped by the vFilers that own the qtrees. The following command displays all qtrees and their owning vFilers:

vfiler run * qtree status