Access FSx NetApp ONTAP Filesystem on Linux and Windows

What is FSx for NetApp ONTAP (FSxN)¶

Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed shared storage built on NetApp’s popular ONTAP filesystem.

How to configure FSxN for SOCA¶

By default, SOCA automatically creates two FSxN (/apps & /data) and will configure both Linux and Windows CIFS shares. Additionally, SOCA takes care of configuring NetApp name-mappings and all relevant ACLs. If you want to change the default settings, edit installer/default_config.yml before installing your SOCA environment and review storage.apps and storage.data sections if you want to customize the storage engine used for both partitions.

Access your data from Windows and Linux¶

One key benefit of this filesystem is the ability for both Windows and Linux clients to access it. Data created on Linux are instantly and automatically visible on Windows, and vice-versa.

SOCA automatically enforces files/folder permissions via NetApp name-mappings. In other words, the UNIX ACL are preserved (e.g: you will not be able to access a file/folder you don't have permission to, whether you are trying to access it from Linux or Windows)

On-Premise NetApp ONTAP

You can mount an on-premise NetApp ONTAP filesystem (or an existing FSxN created outside of SOCA) using SOCA Shared Storage module

Linux¶

Your /apps & /data partitions are automatically mounted. Refer to SOCA Shared Storage module if you want to import and existing NetApp ONTAP filesystem.

No extra configuration is needed.

[socaadmin@ip-214-0-222-1 ~]$ df -h

Filesystem                                                                    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                                                                      3.9G     0  3.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs                                                                         3.9G     0  3.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                                                         3.9G  820K  3.9G   1% /run
tmpfs                                                                         3.9G     0  3.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/nvme0n1p1                                                                 40G  4.7G   36G  12% /
svm-067579eabe6ea70d8.fs-037ed7163d14bed28.fsx.us-east-2.amazonaws.com:/data  973G  114G  860G  12% /data
svm-0a70a8292d30d38e7.fs-0a9ae55f26ab6c18b.fsx.us-east-2.amazonaws.com:/apps  973G  121G  852G  13% /apps
tmpfs                                                                         783M   72K  783M   1% /run/user/7796

Windows¶

Login to your Windows machine (ex: your SOCA Virtual Desktop), and open the type the following

Option1: Via the File Explorer bar¶

Open your Windows file explorer and enter the following path:

\\socaappssvm.<CLUSTER_NAME>.internal\ if you are planning to access the /apps partition
\\socadatasvm.<CLUSTER_NAME>.internal\ if you are planning to access the /data partition

This will automatically grant you access to the data stored on your filesystem

Option2: Map Network Drive¶

On your Windows Virtual Desktop, open File Explorer and click Map Network Drive

Select any drive letter, and type \\socadatasvm.soca-demo.local then click Browse:

Info

The path location for the SOCA home directory is always \\socadatasvm.<CLUSTER_NAME>.local. Adjust cluster name is your SOCA environment is not called soca-demo

Navigate to your home directory and click OK and Finish to mount the share:

Your FSx for NetAPP ONTAP filesystem (green) is now directly accessible under Network Location

Test¶

Your disk is automatically mounted on Linux, so no additional configuration is required. Open your Linux virtual desktop and create a test file via the following command:

echo "Hello" > file_created_from_linux.txt

You can validate if your file has been created correctly via the following command:

ls -ltr

Now go back to your Windows virtual desktop, you should see the file in your explorer

Tip

You can also use the SOCA FileSystem Browser to upload/download data to your FSx for NetAPP ONTAP partitions.