OneFS: How to enable HDFS ACL

Summary: Starting from OneFS 9.3.0, OneFS supports Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) Access Control Lists (ACL) to improve compatibility. It is disabled by default. This article describes the steps to enable HDFS ACL. ...

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Instructions

HDFS ACL is an Apache implementation of POSIX ACL. It provides more flexible access control than the traditional POSIX-mode-bit permission model. 
HDFS ACL is available in Apache Hadoop 2.4.0 and later versions.
Starting from OneFS 9.3.0, OneFS supports HDFS ACL to improve compatibility with HDFS. 
By default, the HDFS ACL is disabled, and the following configuration is required to get consistent HDFS ACL semantics in OneFS. 

  1. Enable HDFS ACL support on the Isilon cluster for the access zone:
    # isi hdfs settings modify --hdfs-acl-enabled=true --zone=<HDFS-zone> 

    If your Hadoop client version is earlier than 3, apply the following setting: 
    # isi hdfs settings modify --hadoop-version-3-or-later=false --zone=<HDFS-zone> 

    Otherwise, check and change it to true: 
    # isi hdfs settings modify --hadoop-version-3-or-later=true --zone=<HDFS-zone>
  2. Configuring ACLs on the Hadoop cluster: Configure dfs.namenode.acls.enabled in hdfs-site.xml to enable ACLs on HDFS. 
    To use ACLs, this requires enabling ACLs on the NameNode by adding the following configuration property to hdfs-site.xml and restarting the NameNode
    <property>
    <name>dfs.namenode.acls.enabled</name>
    <value>true</value>
    </property>
    Or using Cloudera Manager or Ambari to set and configure this properly.
  3. Set HDFS ACL with the hdfs dfs -setfacl command:
    https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/en-us/products/storage/industry-market/h17850-dell-emc-isilon-access-control-lists-hdfs-onefs-wp.pdf

Additional Information

Affected Products

Isilon
Article Properties
Article Number: 000205102
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 30 Dec 2025
Version:  4
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