CIFS on VNXe: user quotas

Question

Hi,

IHAC who has 2 VNXe1350s for CIFS (so Shared Folders) purposes only. Now he was not necessarily delighted when i told him that VNXe neither supports quota trees nor user quotas. I have guided him how to create Shares on subfolders that he had previously created and how to get to the Windows quota Management tab after mounting the root of a given filesystem (e.g. \\cifs-server\users$ to drive z:\) to a host in order to Limit the space for the users' homedrives. He hated it since their users' help desk Needs to script Standard procedures like creating a new user's homedirectory and Setting a quota for it.

Now the question: is the Windows GUI just the vehicle through which i have to define user quotas b/c UEMCLI and VNXe Unisphere don't provide means to do so, but the actual quota will be defined on the VNXe somewhere? I haven't found anything in the Manuals referring to user quotas, so since there is no command to do anything in this regard. So i'm assuming that the VNXe just is agnostic towards quotas and they will have to define a process that keeps quota Management and Information outside the storage that's carrying the filesystems that a being quoted.

right?

thanks in advance for any hint.

Wolfi

chrislogo · Accepted Answer

Hello Wolfi,

That is correct , currently VNXe does not support Quotas but you should be able to use Windows Quotas for your requirement but again all troubleshooting for this will have to initiated from Windows end EMC will not be able to help with that.

DELL-Leo · Answer

Hey,Yes, you are right. Currently the VNXe does not support or manage quotas as of 2.4.1.xxxx code version. But you can setup user quota in a VNXe environment using Microsoft quota manager UI.Please refer to following procedure for quota management on VNXe.1) As administrator map VNXe share to a network drive2) Right click and select Properties and click on the Quota tab3) Once clicked on 'enabled quota management' and on apply, you are asked the confirmation toenable quota on volume.4) Once you click on OK, you have enabled quota on the volume. Now clicking on 'Quota Entries' you canspecify user quota of specific Active Directory users.Hope this helps.

WHeintel · Answer

thanks guys, that confirms what i was assuming: the VNXe doesn't become aware of the quotas that are set via Windows Quota Management, nor does it save them somehow.

yeah, i had come across how one has to set the quotas via mapping a share's root filesystem to a drive letter, hit right-click and so on.

this brings me to the next question:

so where are these informations stored then? can't find anything talking about where the regarding metadata are kept. is it on the machine that i used to configure the quota? so do i have to map these (root) shares permanently and once the system goes down, i lose my quotas?

or will it be incorporated in AD somehow?

thx, wolfi

DELL-Leo · Answer

I also want to confirm these information. But I really do not know. That is just my personal guess.

WHeintel · Answer

... it may be stored in VNXe, just there is no interface let us to check it from GUI.

hm ok, where can i get this Information from? the manuals are VERY silent in terms of quotas. so i'm assuming that also CLI (neither UEMCLI on a host nor via SSH) don't provide any means to administer (or even get info) regarding user quotas.

cheers wolfi

chrislogo · Answer

Hello Wolfi,

As updated earlier VNXe does not support the quota feature in its architecture so my guess is that the Windows Quota management is done internally by AD and in the new Windows it is done by File Server Resource Manager.

DELL-Leo · Answer

Hey Wolfi,

so where are these informations stored then? can't find anything talking about where the regarding metadata are kept. is it on the machine that i used to configure the quota?

Actually, I'm also not sure where are these info stored. But I personally think that it may be stored in VNXe, just there is no interface let us to check it from GUI.

VNX

CIFS on VNXe: user quotas

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