Creation of Home Directories -

Now EMC Says we cannot use Homedir feature on a Virtual Datamover ? Is this correct gents ?.

You can use the homedir feature on a VDM

The homedir DB (iee config file) must be uploaded to the VDM and homedir enabled on the VDM:

$ server_file vdm1 -put homedir_file homedir

$ server_cifs vdm1 -o homedir

Claude

Good point - I kinda took that for granted and obvious

Guys - Thanks but these are the basic steos documented in VNX homedir , its all done however we cannot mount any home directories to \\filesrvr01\HOME > %USERNAME% .

Just let me know does HOME( share) gets exported and can we run commands to see it , in our case we cannot use HOME , we can mount all users to any share except HOME.

Just a few thoughts:

1) Make sure you did not manually create a share named "HOME" or else you can't use the homedir feature (and vice versa)

2) Based on the information provided I just wanted to confirm if I have the information correct:

a) CIFS Server: filesrvr01 (in the MMC plugin, this is the "Data Mover" you connect to)

b) Filesystem: filesrvr1 (mountpoint: /filesrv1)

c) You are trying to associate user's home directory with the following path (I will be representing via UNC path throughout):

\\filesrvr01\c$\filesrvr1\>

Therefore, if for instance, my login is: "cimes", the homedir feature will auto-create (if the option is enabled), the folder as follows:

\\filesrvr01\c$\filesrvr1\cimes

3) In AD, you set the users' profiles to connect home directory to: \\filesrvr01\HOME

4) If as user: "cimes", I browse the following:

a) \\filesrvr01

I will see a share: HOME

b) \\filesrvr01\HOME

I will be effectively browsing the path: \\filesrvr01\c$\filesrvr1\cimes

5) If as a Domain Administrator, I browse to the following:

\\filesrvr01\c$

I will see the following sub-folders (as well as one for the Domain Administrator him/herself):

.\filesrvr1\cimes

However, by default, only the user cimes will be able to browse the folder "cimes".

Does this help at all by describing the folder structure?

Chris -

1) Make sure you did not manually create a share named "HOME" or else you can't use the homedir feature (and vice versa) - NOT MANUALLY CREATED.

2) Based on the information provided I just wanted to confirm if I have the information correct:

a) CIFS Server: filesrvr01 (in the MMC plugin, this is the "Data Mover" you connect to)

b) Filesystem: filesrvr1 (mountpoint: /filesrv1)

Here -

IN MMC - Its pointing to \Filesrvr1\

c) You are trying to associate user's home directory with the following path (I will be representing via UNC path throughout):

\\filesrvr01\c$\filesrvr1\>

Therefore, if for instance, my login is: "cimes", the homedir feature will auto-create (if the option is enabled), the folder as follows:

\\filesrvr01\c$\filesrvr1\cimes

3) In AD, you set the users' profiles to connect home directory to: \\filesrvr01\HOME - in AD I tired to set user home dir to Z: \\Filesrvr01\HOME and \\Filesrvr01\HOME\%username% ( Since we have windpws 2008 ) both say home folder cannot be created because network name cannot be found . AD is expecting HOME to exist before we map first user ?

In my Celerra - Home Directory Shares ENABLED, map=/.etc/homedir

4) If as user: "cimes", I browse the following:

a) \\filesrvr01

I will see a share: HOME

b) \\filesrvr01\HOME

I will be effectively browsing the path: \\filesrvr01\c$\filesrvr1\cimes

5) If as a Domain Administrator, I browse to the following:

\\filesrvr01\c$

I will see the following sub-folders (as well as one for the Domain Administrator him/herself):

.\filesrvr1\cimes

Any idea why I am having issues mapping to HOME? Or would you suggest me doing this all over again ( remeber done this numerous times ) called dell ( they had the case open for a week , escalated this to EMC ) now EMC tells me I should engae field service , I even have emails of them saying it will not work on Virtual data mover? strange .

In regards to the comment about not being supported on VDM's, I'll only say that it is not a true general statement; however, it is possible that support identified something unique to your environment causing such an assessment to be made.  I am not certain what could disqualify the use of homedir with VDM's, but I also don't want to second guess that decision by engineering.

As for the enty in the AD User Profile, that is not necessary to get the homedir itself feature working, but of course (as you know) you'll eventually want that configured so it will set the HOMEDRIVE/HOMEPATH/HOMESHARE environment variables and map upon user login to a drive letter.  However, until homedir is enabled and working, for troubleshooting, you can manually browse to \\filesrvr01\HOME for now.  Another thing you can eventually try is to manually map the HOME share as the user's homedrive as follows:

net user /homedir:"\\filesrvr01\HOME”

If you are unable to browse: \\filesrvr1\HOME (or see HOME advertised) then I am uncertain what is not working.  I suspect that it is unable to automatically create the user folder.  Maybe try manually creating the user folder (as you expect the Celerra/VNX to do for you automatically), apply the proper permissions, and then as that user try browsing to \\filesrvr01\HOME .  As for your earlier question about where on the array itself you can see the actual HOME shares, they are not listed in server_export output.  It would mean having one entry for every user if it were to include that in the output so I personally haven't ever expected it.  Really the only way to verify it is enabled is as follows:

1) Either in the MMC plug-in, it shows: "Enabled" once you connect to the "Data Mover" (which is the CIFS server: filesrvr01 in your envirionment)

2) server_cifs

output shows: Home Directory Shares ENABLED, map=/.etc/homedir

3) You browse to: \\filesrvr01\HOME manually

My only thoughts are:

1) Remember you can enable and configure homedir entirely via the MMC plug-in.

I'm personally not a fan of directly modifying the text file as the MMC plug-in performs validation of the entries (or rather only lets you enter valid syntax).

2) Verify you have the latest version of the MMC plug-in:

a) navigate to: http://support1.emc.com (for those that were participating in the beta, this was supportbeta.emc.com which now redirects also to the new link)

b) Under "Downloads", search for your array model (for example: Celerra NS-120)

c) Then under the list of files, search for: CelerraCifsMgmt.exe (as of this writing, the latest version of the MMC plug-in itself is: v4.4.0.4)

I hope that others have additional feedback (or correct anything I may have misrepresented).

server_export VDM01

VDM01 :

share "Home1" "/Filesrvr1" umask=022 maxusr=4294967295 netbios=FILESRVR01

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Chris , Thank you  so much for your detailed answer , I tried all posibilities some how still every thing works except for HOME ( share) , just answer one question for me , when we install CelerraCifsmgmt software do we need to initialize the local UNIX attributes ?

Strange that CIFS mgmt tool cannot create HOME share on our mounted filesystem \filesrvr1 -

Thanks for your help , I will re visit this later in few weeks .

No, the Celerra UNIX User Management is a separate feature from HomeDir.  Unless you need to map Unix UID's and GID's  to Windows accounts, uncheck it from the setup.

As for your output, I'm wondering maybe if it doesn't like the share name: "Home1" that is (kind of) a derivative of "HOME".  For certain, to use homedir, you cannot manually create a share named: "HOME" (and vice versa); however, I'm wondering if being a conjugation of it might have issues?

Unless of course that share is required, maybe you can consider removing it for testing.  For homedir feature itself to work, you don't need to manually share out the filesystem (or any part of the path).  Just a thought.

I did take out ( HOME1) share that doesn't help , EMC asked me to look if I had a SHARE called HOME in /.etc/shares/@system/HOME , I don't see HOME . Waiting for them to respond back .

Do you think I will have to check some permissions on Celerra file system itself ? When we enable homedir from EMC - MMC , my guess would be HOME gets created in the above path and lets users map to the virtual share ?

Every thing is working fine except HOME is not getting created automatically ..

Glad to see that you are able to reinvigorate the issue with support.

Thanks for testing the removal of the share HOME1; to be honest I wasn't expecting it to resolve anything but was worth a shot.

As for not getting created automatically (doesn't hurt to triple-check one last time that the option is enabled to "Auto Create"), did you try the other suggestion above to manually create the user folder along with the applying the expected permissions, and then as that user browsing to: \\filesrvr01\HOME

So in your configuration that you've been trying to get working, using the example login name of: "cimes":

1) Manually create the folder: "cimes" (in the path: ./filesrvr1/)

This would correspond to your HomeDir entry of: \filesrvr1\

2) Apply proper permissions so that at least cimes has access to folder (default Homedir registry setting only gives permissions to cimes)

3) As user: "cimes" attempt to browse: \\filesrvr01\HOME

Last thought, maybe the MMC plugin is not properly reflecting what is read from/written to the file.  Maybe either delete and recreate HomeDir entry in MMC (if you haven't already), or server_file VDM01 -get the file to compare (but again, I'm not a fan of modifying the text file for the reason noted earlier)

Otherwise, you are in good hands with support and they should be able to resolve it for you.  Yes, bring up your question about permissions on the base folder.  I'm anxiously awaiting what they find; I'm hoping it is not something obvious that was overlooked.  Please keep us posted.

Thanks Chris , after emc asked me to check if HOME existed in /.etc/shares/@system ( You can see this via MMC - Emc) , I tried to see if I can manually create a folder or delete existing SHARES

So it could be permissions , evey one has fullcontrol . Will post it as soon as they respond back.

Thanks for sharing that; good to know. 

I take it that HOME is not showing up for you (along with C$ and IPC$) in that folder.  I'm eager to hear what is the cause of its absence (with HomeDir enabled) and of course the fix.

Thanks again for the feedback.