Preface

About this guide

This guide describes how to use the MultiStore® software product on storage systems that run Data ONTAP® 7.1 software.

Audience

This guide is for system administrators who are familiar with operating systems that run on the Data ONTAP storage system clients, such as UNIX®, Windows 95^TM, Windows NT®, and Windows® 2000. It also assumes that you are familiar with how to configure these storage systems and how the NFS, CIFS, and HTTP protocols are used for file sharing or transfers. This guide does not describe basic system or network administration topics, such as IP addressing, routing, and network topology; it emphasizes the characteristics of the Data ONTAP software.

Terminology

Network Appliance's storage products (filers, FAS appliances, and NearStore® systems) are all storage systems--also sometimes called filers or storage appliances.

This guide uses the term "type" to mean pressing one or more keys on the keyboard. It uses the term "enter" to mean pressing one or more keys and then pressing the Enter key.

Command conventions

You can enter Data ONTAP commands on either the system console or from any client computer that can access the storage system through a Telnet session.

In examples that illustrate commands executed on a UNIX workstation, the command syntax and output might differ, depending on your version of UNIX.

FilerView as an alternative to commands

Tasks you perform as a storage system administrator can be performed by entering commands at the system console, in configuration files, or through a Telnet session or a Remote Shell (rsh) connection.

Another method of performing many common storage system tasks is to use the FilerView® graphical management interface for viewing and managing a storage system from a Web browser. FilerView comes with every Data ONTAP storage system, is easy to use, and includes Help that explains Data ONTAP features and how to work with them in FilerView.

For more information about accessing a storage system with FilerView, and about FilerView Help, see the System Administration Guide.

Keyboard conventions

When describing key combinations, this guide uses the hyphen (-) to separate individual keys. For example, "Ctrl-D" means pressing the "Control" and "D" keys simultaneously. Also, this guide uses the term "Enter" to refer to the key that generates a carriage return, although the key is named "Return" on some keyboards.

Typographic conventions

The following table describes typographic conventions used in this guide.

Convention	Type of information
Italic font	Words or characters that require special attention. Placeholders for information you must supply. For example, if the guide says to enter the `arp -d` hostname command, you enter the characters "arp -d" followed by the actual name of the host. Book titles in cross-references.
`Monospaced` font	Command and daemon names. Information displayed on the system console or other computer monitors. The contents of files.
`Bold monospaced` font	Words or characters you type. What you type is always shown in lowercase letters, unless you must type it in uppercase letters.

Convention

Type of information

Italic font

Words or characters that require special attention.

Placeholders for information you must supply. For example, if the guide says to enter the arp -d hostname command, you enter the characters "arp -d" followed by the actual name of the host.

Book titles in cross-references.

Monospaced font

Command and daemon names.

Information displayed on the system console or other computer monitors.

The contents of files.

Bold monospaced font

Words or characters you type. What you type is always shown in lowercase letters, unless you must type it in uppercase letters.

Special messages

This guide contains special messages that are described as follows:

Note
A note contains important information that helps you install or operate the system efficiently.

Attention
An attention contains instructions that you must follow to avoid damage to the equipment, a system crash, or loss of data.