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University of Florida

File

Creating a Share

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your Gatorlink ID (GLID).
  2. Navigate to the "Catalog" tab.
  3. "Request" the "Create Basic SMB Share" catalog item.
  4. Select the correct Business Group the share will be billed to from the drop down list and click OK. If the group is not present, you will need to request access to it or create it. Follow the group update procedure before continuing with this one.
  5. Fill out all pertinent information in the "Create Basic SMB Share" request form.
    • Setting "Hidden" to yes adds an $ at the end of the share name to hide it from view when browsing the file server. Hidden shares are normally administrative shares and provide no additional security to users.
    • Setting "Encrypt access" to yes (default setting) enforces the encryption of data traffic sent between the file server and the client. This requires a client OS that supports SMB3 encryption (Windows 8+, OSX 10.10+, Linux kernel 4.11+). Older or unsupported clients will be unable to initiate connections to encrypted shares.
    • Setting "Two copies" to yes will enable your file share for replication from primary to stand-by site. Note that you will pay an additional cost for replication as identified in our pricing page.
    • "Email" is a required field and is used to provide system notifications related to the share including initial share creation status. We recommend using an alias or distribution list address to ensure notifications are received in the event personnel leave the organization.
    • "Full, Change, Read, and Deny" are UFAD security groups which you populate with your own users or groups, granting the specified access levels to the share. "Full" is required; the other groups are optional.
  6. Verify that the info and selected options are correct before clicking "Submit". Some options, such as name and replication, cannot be changed after you create this share.
  7. Click "Submit." If any Errors are highlighted, correct them and resubmit.
  8. You will be returned to the "Deployments" tab to watch the status of the workflow submission. Click the refresh button on the right hand side to update progress if needed. You can also click the blue in-progress text to see more details.
  9. You should receive several emails including a final success (or failure) email (which may take some time to send) if the workflow completes successfully. This email will provide you the UNC path to access the share. You may need to log off of your workstation and log back in to refresh your group membership before access to the share is possible.

Viewing the Properties of a Share

This shows information such as the share UNC path for access, share size, available and consumed space, and share properties. This is a read-only view, and the fields cannot be changed here.

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your GLID
  2. Navigate to the "Deployments" tab. You may need to refresh your browser session to see the list of items visible to you.
  3. For the item you want to view the properties for, click on the blue "ACTIONS" dropdown on the right side of the screen and select "View Details."
  4. All visible properties for the share are presented in the center screen.

Modify Share

This process allows you to modify specific share settings.

You cannot modify the name or replication schema of the share. To modify any of these settings you will need to create a new share, copy your data from the old to the new then delete the original share.

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your GLID.
  2. Navigate to the "Deployments" tab. You may need to refresh your browser session to see the list of items visible to you.
  3. For the item you want to modify the properties for, click on the blue "ACTIONS" dropdown on the right side of the screen and select "Update Basic SMB Share."
  4. Make any necessary changes to the share including adding or changing SMB share permissions, resizing the volume, or enabling and disabling encrypted access to the share. Click "Submit" when complete.

Delete a Share

This will delete the share, all data within the share, and all snapshots of the data and any replicated copies. This is IRRECOVERABLE, and UFIT has no additional backups of the data.

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your GLID
  2. Navigate to the "Deployments" tab. You may need to refresh your browser session to see the list of items visible to you.
  3. For the item you want to delete, click on the blue "ACTIONS" dropdown on the right side of the screen and select "Delete Basic SMB Share."
  4. Read the warning and verify the share name listed is the correct share you intend to delete.
  5. Click "Submit" if you want to continue and delete the share.

Creating an Export

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your Gatorlink ID (GLID).
  2. Navigate to the "Catalog" tab.
  3. "Request" the "Create Basic NFS Export" catalog item.
  4. Select the correct Business Group the NFS export will be billed to from the drop down list and click OK. If the group is not present, you will need to request access to it or create it. Follow the group update procedure before continuing with this one.
  5. Fill out all pertinent information in the "Create Basic NFS Export" request form.
    • Setting "Two copies" to yes will enable replication from primary to stand-by site. Note that you will pay an additional cost for replication (see pricing).
    • "Email" is a required field and is used to provide system notifications related to the export including initial export creation status. We recommend using an alias or distribution list address to ensure notifications are received in the event personnel leave the organization.
    • "Superuser IPs, Read Write IPs, Read Only IPs" refer to IPv4 addresses or network ranges that will be granted the indicated access to the export.
  6. Verify that the info and selected options are correct before clicking "Submit". Some options, such as name and replication, cannot be changed after you create this share.
  7. Click "Submit." If any Errors are highlighted, correct them and resubmit.
  8. You will be returned to the "Deployments" tab to watch the status of the workflow submission. Click the refresh button on the right hand side to update progress if needed. You can also click the blue in-progress text to see more details.
  9. You should receive several emails including a final success (or failure) email (which may take some time to send) if the workflow completes successfully. This email will provide you the NFS mount point to access the export.

Viewing the Properties of an Export

This shows information such as the full export access path, size, available and consumed space, and IPs and IP ranges allowed Readonly/ReadWrite/SuperUser access. This is a read-only view, and the fields cannot be changed here.

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your GLID
  2. Navigate to the "Deployments" tab. You may need to refresh your browser session to see the list of items visible to you.
  3. For the item you want to view properties for, click on the blue "ACTIONS" dropdown on the right side of the screen and select "View Details."
  4. All visible properties for the export are presented in the center screen.

Modify Export

This process allows you to modify specific export settings.

You cannot modify the name or replication schema of the export. To modify any of these settings you will need to create a new NFS export, copy your data from the old to the new, then delete the original export.

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your GLID
  2. Navigate to the "Deployments" tab. You may need to refresh your browser session to see the list of items visible to you.
  3. For the item you want to modify properties for, click on the blue "ACTIONS" dropdown on the right side of the screen and select "Update Basic NFS Export."
  4. Make any necessary changes to the export including adding or changing IP or IP ranges for export ACL access and resizing the volume. Click "Submit" when complete.

Delete an Export

This will delete the NFS export, all data within the export, all snapshots of the data and any replicated copies. This is IRRECOVERABLE, and UFIT has no additional backups of the data.

  1. Log into the Hosting Portal using your GLID
  2. Navigate to the "Deployments" tab. You may need to refresh your browser session to see the list of items visible to you.
  3. For the item you want to delete, click on the blue "ACTIONS" dropdown on the right side of the screen and select "Delete Basic NFS Export."
  4. Read the warning and verify the export name listed is the correct export you intend to delete.
  5. Click "Submit" if you want to continue and delete the export.

Steps to perform

  1. Create a new SMB File Share or NFS Export and select "Two Copies:" "yes" to enable replication or "Two Copies:" "no" to disable replication during the share/export creation process.
  2. Move your data from the original location to the new one, using a client tool. Many of our clients use ROBOCOPY for SMB and rsync for NFS, to copy existing permissions and hidden files.
  3. Delete the original share/export.

Warnings

  • The File Server name, share name, or export path may change as part of this process. This is DISRUPTIVE to clients.
  • To minimize client disruption, Windows users may ask the UFIT Microsoft Core Team to create a DFS namespace prior to the migration. Then, you may instruct clients to use the DFS path for UNC, instead of the SMB server path. Similarly, Linux users may configure the Linux automount client to fail-over between the original and new paths.
  • Immediately following migration, we recommend removing user permissions to the original location, but leave administrative read-only permissions for yourself, so you can restore any files that were locked or otherwise missed during the original migration. Then, schedule to delete the original location later in the month, before the end of the billing cycle.