Understanding volumes and qtrees on a vFiler unit

Assigning volumes to a vFiler unit

A volume assigned to a vFiler unit can be a traditional volume or a flexible (FlexVol^TM) volume. You cannot assign aggregates to a vFiler unit.

For information about traditional volumes, FlexVol volumes, and aggregates, see the Data ONTAP Storage Management Guide.

Effects of taking a vFiler unit volume offline

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

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

Changes required after volumes are renamed

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

Who can create qtrees

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

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 unit

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

Differences in qtree command output

The qtree command output changes, depending on where you enter the command:

If you enter the qtree command from the hosting storage system, the command displays information about all qtrees on the storage system, whether the qtrees are owned by the hosting storage system or vFiler units.
If you enter the qtree command from a vFiler unit, the command displays information about qtrees on that vFiler unit 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 unit, 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 vFiler units

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

vfiler run * qtree status