Novell FILE SYSTEM FACTORY 1.2.1 ADMINISTRATION GUIDE

Novell File System Factory

1.2.1

August 30, 2005

www.novell.com

ADMINISTRATION GUIDE

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File System Factory 1.2.1 Administration Guide

August 30, 2005

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Contents

Novell...................................................................................................................................1

File System Factory™........................................................................................................1

Contents..............................................................................................................................4

1 Welcome...........................................................................................................................6

.............................................................................................................................................6

2 Product Mission and Key Benefits .................................................................................7

3 Overview...........................................................................................................................9

4 Components and Transaction Flow..............................................................................10

5 Product Requirements...................................................................................................11

6 New Features in Version 1.2.1......................................................................................12

New Features in Version 1.2............................................................................................13

7 Global Event Subsystem................................................................................................14

9 Installation and Configuration.....................................................................................18

Schema Extensions.......................................................................................................18

Proxy Rights.................................................................................................................18

Base Installation...........................................................................................................19

Creating a Policy..........................................................................................................19

Assigning a Policy to a Container...............................................................................20

Installation and Configuration Verification..............................................................20

Applying a Policy to Existing Users...........................................................................21

10 Management Interface................................................................................................22

Accessing the Management Interface.........................................................................22

Using the Management Interface................................................................................24

11 Policy Definitions and Application.............................................................................41

12 Backfill Operations......................................................................................................47

........................................................................................................................................51

13 Quota Manager............................................................................................................52

Enabling and Configuring Quota Management for a Policy...................................53

Setting up Rights to Use Quota Manager..................................................................53

Using the Quota Manager Interface...........................................................................54

Configuring the Executive Dashboard.......................................................................57

Executive Dashboard Security Principle Object.......................................................58

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Using the Executive Dashboard Interface.................................................................59

Configuring Workflow................................................................................................63

Setting up the Workflow Management Structure.....................................................64

Using the Workflow Interface....................................................................................64

16 Template Processing....................................................................................................66

Examples.......................................................................................................................70

Template Summary......................................................................................................73

17 Mass User Testing.......................................................................................................74

18 Universal Resource Access..........................................................................................75

19 Home Directory Deployment Scenarios......................................................................77

20 Collaborative Storage Management...........................................................................79

Collaborative Storage in Business .............................................................................79

Collaborative Storage in Education ..........................................................................80

21 Data Migration............................................................................................................82

22 Release Notes...............................................................................................................85

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

1 Welcome

Welcome to the Novell File System Factory ™ 1.2 Administrator’s Guide. This Administrator’s Guide is intended to introduce you to File System Factory™ and guide you through the installation, configuration, and usage of the product.

During the spring of 2003 Novell introduced Novell File System Factory, a product that revolutionizes use of the Novell File System. Novell is building on that success with the release of Novell File System Factory 1.2 and now with version 1.2.1. File System Factory allows for easy provisioning, management, and cleanup of user home directories and group storage, while providing disk storage to all network users and collaborative storage to working groups.

Designed for the real world from the inside out, Novell File System Factory is built on procedures proven in real world environments. In the real world target servers die, volumes dismount, routers are rebooted and backhoes dig up communication links. The action engine in File System Factory is built on transactional state machine architecture to ensure that policies are applied when events happen no matter what.

Novell File System Factory is a complete home directory life cycle solution for user as well as group storage. With File System Factory, and its automated power and ease of configuration, the perplexity of file system management is gone. Users will love true instant access to the information they need. Administrators will love Zero Day cleanup.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

2 Product Mission and Key Benefits

Novell’s File System Factory is a revolutionary policy driven file-system management solution that unites Novell’s industry leading directory service eDirectory with the legendary NetWare file system. The connection of eDirectory identities with directory based storage management polices for creating personal and collaborative storage delivers the industry’s only identity based storage management solution.

Product Mission

The mission of File System Factory™ is to unite an organization’s user identities with their storage system to deliver a full lifecycle identity based storage management solution that completely automates the load balanced creation, management, and deletion of personal and collaborative disk space.

The major objective of Novell File System Factory is to create a storage management subsystem to back these Administrator instructions:

1. Install some disk storage.

2. Point your new or existing tree at the new storage.

3. Sit back and relax.

Identity Based Storage Management Solution

Novell File System Factory is a key component of Novell’s Secure Identity Management solution set. File System Factory provides new and dynamic levels of automation and management for NetWare file services, which to this point have not been possible. File System Factory enables policy-based lifecycle provisioning and de-provisioning of personal and group storage. As a result, your business can simplify access and management of storage, based on users' identities. Regardless of how you create, move or delete user and group accounts in the directory, Novell File System Factory responds to these events by automatically creating, moving or deleting disk storage on NetWare. With File System Factory, your business can effortlessly keep pace with the storage demands of a busy, large-scale organization and reduce support costs.

Providing personal and collaborative storage on a network can be a very valuable. However, providing and managing storage for each user and group on your network can become a major headache for your overburdened IT department. Fortunately, with File System Factory™, you can provide the storage users expect (and genuinely need) while significantly reducing the headache—and cost—of creating and managing that storage.

Storage Solution for all Environments

File System Factory™ unites the NetWare® file system that is an integral part of many real-world eDirectory implementations with the eDirectory automation that these identity provisioning solutions provide. File System Factory™ is designed to provide an immediate benefit in managing network storage for any enterprise, no matter what the current situation:

• New Tree – No User Home Directories

o If you are just starting out, File System Factory™ can give your new

users managed home directory space with little effort on your part.

• Existing Tree – No User Home Directories

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

o If you already have user accounts in your tree, but have not taken the

steps to give them home directories, File System Factory™ can automatically give your existing users managed home directory space.

• Existing Tree – Existing User Home Directories

o If you already have user accounts in your tree and they have home

directories, File System Factory™ can begin managing your existing home directories as well as provision and manage any new ones.

Key Novell File System Factory Benefits:

• Full lifecycle, policy-driven file system management to create, manage, delete

home directories for both personal and collaborative storage.

• Unites newer identity provision solutions with the NetWare file system,

delivering identity based storage management.

• Automatic NetWare® storage with access methods to all namespaces, including

Windows, Mac, UNIX, and the Web.

• Group collaborative storage provisioning through policies.

• Automatic assignment of Disk Space Restrictions.

• Load balancing, Multi-Server Distribution & Space Balancing.

• NetWare storage control based on policies managed by eDirectory.

• Powerful automated Data Migration, including moving from traditional NetWare

file servers to Novell Storage Services™ & Cluster Services

• Automated Cleanup (everybody’s pain point) based on policy.

• Designed, built and tested to solve “real world” issues in delivering personal and

collaborative storage.

Enable Migration to New Provisioning Processes

Novell File System Factory is an invaluable resource to assist organizations in moving to a new or adding an additional provisioning process. By using File System Factory to make storage creation and management a separate but linked component of the user provisioning process, organizations are now free to adopt and migrate to the new provisioning technologies of Novell. Therefore, with File System Factory you can add file system connectivity to your current and future provisioning solution whether it is based on Novell Nsure Identity Manager (DirXML), LDAP applications, UIMPORT, LDIF, ICE, custom code or another vendor’s product.

Policy Based Data Migration

Migrating home directories and group storage is a cumbersome and time consuming process for administrators, but now Novell File System Factory is making migrating data easy and painless for both administrators and end-users. Using Novell File System factory can make moving to a Netware cluster as easy as changing an attribute in eDirectory. With NetWare now supporting Clusters and SANs, many organizations want to migrate. Data migration through dynamic policy application is one of the most powerful features of File System Factory. If a user moves or the policy covering the user changes, the new policy applies. If the new policy points to a different set of storage, say another server, the user’s home directory and data will automatically moved to the new server in a way that the user is not impacted by the move. Attributes of the policy dictate the schedule and bandwidth used for data migrations.

In addition, File System Factory™ contains safeguards to ensure "seamless" migration of the data by taking the necessary precautions to avoid troublesome situations and educate the user about the migration process.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

3 Overview

File System Factory™ is an event-driven file system management solution for eDirectory and NetWare. Ultimately, it creates, manages, and deletes disk storage based on events in the Directory. It is designed to provide these services for user home directories (personal storage) as well as shared disk space (group storage).

These actions are performed based on File System Factory™ management Policies that are defined and associated with containers in the tree. Policy definitions allow separate management methods for storage for users and groups in the same part of the tree. A single Policy may be assigned to multiple objects in the tree for unified management. A policy may be assigned to a container, a group, or directly to an individual user object. Standard inheritance determines which policy, if any, is applied for a given object.

File System Factory™ contains selectable algorithms for load-balancing storage across multiple servers and volumes. These may be traditional NetWare volumes, volumes based on Novell Storage Services (NSS), or volumes backed by Novell Cluster Services.

When an event occurs in the tree, the event-monitoring component of File System Factory™ immediately intercepts the event. Because File System Factory™ contains a Global Event Subsystem; multiple instances of the event monitor can be run simultaneously on multiple servers without concern for replica location collisions and duplicate event processing.

The intercepted Directory events are sent to a server running the File System Factory™ action engine component. If the engine determines that a Policy has been associated directly or indirectly with the object being created, modified, or deleted; the engine then applies the Policy.

Policies contain provisions for having File System Factory™ not only create the file systems, but also apply quotas, set trustee assignments, and copy a given template directory containing files and subdirectories with trustees. Directory cleanup can be managed such that file system deletions may occur immediately after object deletion or be deferred for a specified amount of time.

File System templates may be applied to users or groups or both users and groups. File System Factory™ can copy in a specified template directory from anywhere on the network for each user or group home directory created. Files and directories may be copied as well as trustee assignments and attributes.

The engine contains an internal transactional state machine architecture that allows the engine to deal with transient waits with eDirectory synchronization issues. The state machine architecture also allows 100% recovery from any failure involving network communications, a target server or a server running a component of File System Factory™ (including the engine itself).

File System Factory™ will work with any version of NDS or eDirectory. Components will run on any 5.x or 6.x NetWare server. File systems can be created and managed on any supported version of NetWare that works with NDS or eDirectory (4.x, 5.x, 6.x).

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

4 Components and Transaction Flow

The following diagram illustrates the command and controls as well as data flow within a File System Factory™ system.

Generally, this is how File System Factory™ is put into action:

1. An Administrator uses a browser to create a File System Factory™ Policy. Here, the Policy is directed to one or more target data paths on NetWare volumes. A load-balancing algorithm is specified as well as a default trustee assignment and optionally an initial quota and copy template path.

2. Then the Policy is assigned or associated with one or more objects in the tree, such as a container.

3. The event monitoring NLM intercepts events for the container associated with the Policy and sends the events in to the Engine NLM.

4. The Engine NLM contains a process queue and event database on the local system. It applies the Policy to the event and acts on the target file system pointed to by the Policy.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

5 Product Requirements

The following table defines all requirements to run File System Factory™.

Component Requirement

NDS/eDirectory Any Novell supported version of NDS or eDirectory

(6.xx, 7.xx, 8.xx, 85.xx, 8.6.x. and 8.7.x) Replica Placement

Event Monitoring NLM FSF_EVENT Action Engine NLM FSF_ENGINE

Target Home Directory Server for Users or Groups

There are no replica location requirements. Because

File System Factory™ contains a Global Event

Subsystem, replicas can be held on any server.

Supported on the following platforms:

• NetWare 5.1 SP6 or later

• NetWare 6.0 SP4 or later

Supported on the following platforms:

• NetWare 6.0 SP4 or later

• NetWare 6.5 SP1 or later

File System Factory™ performs server-to-server

communication from the server running the Action

Engine NLM to manage user and group file systems on

target servers. These target servers can be at any of

these levels of NetWare:

• NetWare 4.x SP9 or later

• NetWare 5.0 SP6a or later

• NetWare 5.1 SP6 or later

• NetWare 6.0 SP4 or later

• NetWare 6.5 SP1 or later

4.x

5.0

5.1

6.0

5.1

6.0

6.5

6.0

6.5

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

6 New Features in Version 1.2.1

Novell File System Factory™ 1.2.1 resolves several known issues and enhances the existing feature set.

Resolved issues include

• Functionality added to prevent events from queuing, and not clearing

• Case matching issue which caused unnecessary moves

• Unusual characters in object names including underscores in server and volume names not

working in the admin Dashboard, “&”, “.” and other unusual characters in common names.

• Domain objects now displayed in selection interface

• New return code added to correctly process –member- and –owner- events

New features and enhancement include

Changes and additions to backfill operations (see chapter 12 for details)

• Separation between user home directory management and group storage management

• Group storage management backfill operations added

• New operation to assign the home directory attribute when directories exist but eDirectory

attribute is not set

• New operation to copy or update a user directory structure (template)

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

• New operation to set rights on home directories

New consistency check operations added to provide a diagnostic look at whether users and group are correctly cataloged for management through File System Factory. This is available through the Management FSF Policies interface (browsing objects) or from the backfill options pages.

New configuration option which provides the ability to set up a security user to restrict access to the management interface

Rename functionality added for changes to user names with member directories in group storage

Operation to perform abort of multiple pending events. This is a restricted access operation, which will require contact with support to use. To gain access, send an email request to fsfdev@novell.com

New Features in Version 1.2

Novell File System Factory™ 1.2 has been updated to the Novell common web interface skin. It also has many new features to further enhance the experience of identity based file system provisioning. This section identifies and gives reference to sections in this guide which provide detail on the use and access of the new features.

Status indicator for user storage available; see section 10, Management Interface.

Priority Event status for create user events; see section 7, Global Event Subsystem.

New Executive and Administrator Dashboards for easily accessible statistics, status and reports; see section 10, Management Interface for Admin Dashboard, and chapter 14, Executive Dashboard.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Auditing Access quickly calculates and displays the rights to any file or directory, and how those rights were assigned; see section 10, Management Interface.

File Browse capability; see section 10, Management Interface.

Ability to assign a deleted user’s files to a manager and manage using workflow, based on Novell eGuide; see section 15, Workflow.

New backfill options including group and template backfill; see section 12, Backfill Operations.

Increased accessibility for group template processing, including sample templates; see section 16, Template Processing.

Quota Manager is a role based service feature allowing a help-desk user or support personnel to quickly and easily manage and raise user disk space quota based on policy, without having to give them rights to the file system; see section 13, Quota Manager.

7 Global Event Subsystem

Description

File System Factory™ contains an event services component (FSFEVENT.NLM) that intercepts relevant User and Group events in the Directory and sends them to the action engine component (FSFENGIN.NLM) for processing.

The event subsystem is built on top of the AuditLogin™ event and transactional consolidation engine which has years of proven reliability and performance. The event consolidation engine provides the ability to receive events from multiple sources simultaneously and make sense of them.

The event services component of the system contains a caching subsystem so that events will be cached locally if they cannot immediately be sent into the consolidation component. This system assures that all events eventually make it to the consolidation component in the correct order.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Therefore, you may run the event auditing NLM (FSFEVENT.NLM) on multiple servers simultaneously and have them all send their events into a single server running the action engine NLM (FSFENGIN.NLM) and be assured that the events will be delivered.

The problem of auditing Directory events on multiple servers simultaneously usually arises when multiple audited servers hold a replica of the same partition. The result is that the same event will be intercepted by each of the instances of the event monitor that is on a server auditing the same replica ring and be sent in to the consolidator engine multiple times. The problem is exacerbated by delays in Directory synchronization and network outages.

The File System Factory™ engine global event system component contains proprietary analysis methodologies along with an event database on the local system that ensures that any event is only acted on only once.

Why Global Events?

An alternative to implementing a Global Event System is to require the event-monitoring component to run on a server that holds a replica of every partition that contains relevant objects.

NDS/eDirectory is a scalable, replicated database that allows administrators to define partitions and replicate the database in ways that make sense for the given network topology and hardware that is in place. This flexibility is one of the attributes of NDS and eDirectory that makes it a winner. The introduction of a software product requiring at least one server to hold a replica of all partitions removes some of this flexibility and is often a challenge in customer environments where the tree and network is not designed to facilitate this.

You may already have a network that can support a single replica server requirement. If so, you have the option of only running one instance of FSFEVENT.NLM. However, you may find that running multiple instances results in faster actions on events and the insurance policy that says you will not miss any events even if a server fails or a replica becomes corrupted.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Monitored Events

For improved performance, the event monitor in File System Factory™ streamlines the process by only monitoring for and sending events to the Engine that might be relevant to a Policy or template. Currently, the following events are monitored:

• User

o Add Object o Delete Object o Rename Object o Move Object o File System Factory™ Policy Assignment o Modify Manager attribute from Novell eGuide

• Group

o Add Object o Delete Object o Rename Object o Member Attribute

 Add Member  Delete Member

o Owner Attribute

 Add Owner  Delete Owner

Priority Events

New in File System Factory 1.2, user create events received by the FSF engine will be assigned a higher priority than other events. This will allow them to be processed first, instead of having to wait for lower priority events, such as data migration (move) events. High priority events will be processed first, in chronological order, and when complete, the other events will be processed in chronological order. If there is a delay causing a high priority event to be unable to complete, it will be assigned a non-priority status, and processed with the regular queue rotation.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

8 Transactions and the Engine State Machine

“Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor gloom of delayed DS synchronization shall stay this system from the swift completion of its appointed tasks…”

Because NDS/eDirectory is a replicated, loosely consistent database, taking live action on NDS events in real-world network situation is challenging. For example, the engine may be notified of the creation of a new user, but the replica that the engine NLM is using for referrals may not know about the user yet. Or maybe he does and the engine can go ahead and use server-to-server communications to create the home directory on a target server, but the application of the quota or the ACL fails because the replica being used by the target server does not know about the user yet.

There are other potential problems in the real world. Target servers die, volumes dismount, routers are rebooted, and backhoes dig up communication links.

Because of this real world that most customers live in, the action engine in File System Factory™ is built on transactional state machine architecture to ensure that Policies are applied when events happen, no matter what.

Each transaction consists of a series of steps or states. The engine contains a Process Queue that is backed by the file system of the local server. Each transaction on the Process Queue contains the state or progress of the given transaction. If there is some situation that is holding up completion of a particular transaction, the engine will move on to the next transaction in the list. When it comes back around to the transaction that was experiencing the delay and processing will continue. The process queue is rebuilt from the file system each time the engine is restarted.

In the end, File System Factory™ is built so that you can trigger several thousand transactions and then disconnect the net connection or even push the reset button on any server running any File System Factory™ component or any target server without cause for concern.

Note: In the event of large numbers of events queuing, which for some reason cannot clear through regular engine processing, there is a new multiple event abort feature available for restricted use by contacting support at fsfdev@novell.com.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

9 Installation and Configuration

The following sections present step-by-step instructions on the initial installation of File System Factory™. It also includes instructions for defining a new Policy and associating it with a container in the tree. There are sections on verifying the installation and load testing the product in your environment as well.

Schema Extensions

File System Factory™ requires that the schema be extended. The schema extensions include several attributes that make up the new class cccFSFactoryPolicy. There is one new attribute that added to the optional attributes list of the Organization, Organizational Unit, and User classes. For Quota Manager there is one attribute called cccFSFactoryHomeDirectoryQuota added to Organizational Person class.

The schema is extended during the installation or upgrade process.

Proxy Rights

The File System Factory™ engine (FSFENGIN.NLM) needs the appropriate rights to manage the file systems of target volumes as well as manipulate certain attributes of objects in the tree. The engine authenticates to the tree as the NDS server object of the server it is running on.

Before you start this section, you should take a look at the rights your server already has in the tree. Novell gives some server objects Supervisor rights to the root of the tree by default. If your server already has these rights, you may skip the remainder of this section.

There are two approaches to choose from here:

1. As a matter of practicality, you should give the server object Supervisor rights to any containers that might (now or in the future) hold users, servers, or File System Factory™ Policy objects.

2. OR, if you want to micro-manage the rights the server object has, the server object needs to be given the following rights:

Type Right Class Attribute Target

NDS Read /

Write (Property)

NDS Read /

Write (Property)

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Organization, Organizational Unit

Home Directory Containers associated with

a File System Factory™ Policy that may contain User objects. All user objects below the ACL assignment will inherit this right.

ccFSFactory*** Containers that may hold

File System Factory™ Policies. This will allow the Engine server to manage all Policies created in containers below the ACL assignment.

NDS Create

(Object)

File Sys

Supervisor N/A File Systems pointed to by

Organization, Organizational Unit

The Engine Server must have the right to create cccFSFactoryPolicy objects anywhere in the tree that an administrator might wish.

File System Factory™ Policies.

Base Installation

Before you begin, you will need the following items:

1. The File System Factory™ is distribution package. This is a single EXE that may be downloaded from the web site.

2. A license file, LICENSE.DAT, is also required for the specific tree into which you intend to install.

Running the distribution package executable will guide you through the entire installation and initial configuration of the product. The first step of the installation allows the option to view Installation Best Practices. It also has a Check for updates option which is strongly recommended. . If you have completed this step, you are now running File System Factory™.

Creating a Policy

Note: There is a computer-based video that describes the policy creation and assignment process in the \factory\videos subdirectory on the Engine server.

The following details the creation and association of a File System Factory™ Policy:

1. Attach to the NetWare Remote Manager on the server running the Engine using a browser. If you are unsure of how to do this, see section 12 of this document, which describes the management interface and how to attach to it.

2. At the bottom of the page you will see an entry for File System Factory™. Click on the “Manage” menu link

3. Click on Policy Administration menu link.

4. Select a container into which you have Create rights to hold a Policy object. After being created, a given Policy may be applied to any container, so the location of the object in the tree is not very important.

5. Type in the name for a new Policy and click the “Create Policy” button. This will create the new Policy.

6. When the new Policy is displayed on the screen, click the Policy name. This will result in the display of the Policy configuration menu. You may define policy management attributes for users or groups here. We will configure for users.

7. Click on the “User Paths” menu link.

8. Enter the volume and path information for one or more targets. This identifies where the user home directories will be stored. The paths that you enter here must exist.

9. Click on the “User Properties” menu link.

10. Select or enter the given criteria:

o Algorithm: Select the distribution algorithm that you would like to use. o Quota: Enter the number of megabytes that you would like to be applied to

each home directory as a quota.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

o Trustee: Select the rights that you would like for each user to have to his

home directory.

o Template: If you would like for each home directory to be primed with a set

of files and directories, enter the volume and path information that holds the directory to be copied from. Trustee assignments will be copied as well.

11. Click “Save” to save the criteria.

12. If you would like for this policy to apply to groups, repeat steps 7-10 to specify Policy criteria related to file systems for Groups, except click on the “Group Paths” and “Group Properties” links as appropriate.

13. Now you must assign the Policy with one or more objects in the tree. The following example shows show to assign a policy to a container.

Assigning a Policy to a Container

For a Policy to have any effect, you must assign it to one or more containers in the tree. There are two methods to choose from:

A. Browse to the container and assign the given policy to the container.

B. Go to the given policy configuration page and add containers to the "Associated

Containers" list.

Since we have just been editing the Policy, we will simply add the container to the Policy that we are already editing.

1. Click on the “Associated Containers” menu link.

2. Browse to the appropriate container and select it.

3. Click “Add Container”.

Installation and Configuration Verification

At this point, all components are installed and you have created a Policy and assigned it to a container. The children of the container a Policy was originally associated with inherit that Policy. File System Factory™ is monitoring the NDS for events. If an event occurs in a container covered by a Policy, then action will be taken.

You may verify operation of File System Factory™ by adding a user to the container or any sub-container. You can use NWAdmin or ConsoleOne to do this.

After the user is created, inspect the FSFEVENT screen to verify that the event was received. If not, verify that the server in question holds a replica of the partition containing the object.

Then inspect the FSFENGIN screen to verify that the event made it from FSFEVENT. If not, verify that the name of the server running the Engine was correctly specified on the FSFEVENT LOAD command and check the FSFEVENT screen for connectivity errors. If there are connectivity errors, each transaction will cause FSFEVENT to attempt to reconnect to the Engine server, therefore adding another user is one way to precipitate a reconnection.

Then using NWAdmin or ConsoleOne, look at the “Environment” tab for the user. If the event has processed, the home directory attribute will reflect the location of the user’s home directory. Depending on replica location and synchronization, the update may take a minute. As with all things DS, wait “an appropriate amount of time.”

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Verify the quota, trustee assignment, and copy file system template results as applicable.

Applying a Policy to Existing Users

If the container to which you apply a Policy already contains users, you may instruct File System Factory™ to begin managing these users.

1. Click on Policy Management menu link.

2. Browse to the container (or any sub-container).

3. Click on the backfill icon beside the name of the container. The container management page will be shown.

4. Select the “Backfill” option.

5. Click on the “Apply Policy” button.

The engine will then apply the appropriate policy to any users in that container or any sub-containers. Those users that do not already have a home directory will be queued up as events for the Engine to process. .

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

10 Management Interface

File System Factory™ is very powerful, but requires little in the way of management.

The following are operations that must be performed to manage a File System Factory™ installation:

• Define Policies.

• Associate Policies with objects in the tree.

• Configure Parameters.

• Perform backfill operations.

There are also some management tools available to help administrators track and report statistics, activity and trends in the storage managed by File System Factory™. These are available in the Admin Dashboard. There is also an Executive Dashboard designed to provide access to reports and statistics from a separate interface for individuals who need easy access to the data, but who don’t need daily access to the actual management of File System Factory™. See Chapter 14, Executive Dashboard.

Accessing the Management Interface

File System Factory™ is managed using a browser. The management interface is accessible through the NetWare Remote Manager (NRM) web portal that is available on all NetWare 5.x and 6.x servers.

PORTAL.NLM provides the NRM interface. It runs on top of HTTPSTK.NLM, which provides the communications layer. The File System Factory™ Engine also runs on top of HTTPSTK.NLM, and is linked from the main menu of the NRM interface.

Be aware that in some versions of the NetWare Remote Management (Portal) interface, you must login in order to see the “Manage” link under the File System Factory™ menu item.

Access NetWare Remote Manager by going to the default page:

(Ex: http://your.server.name.or.ip.address:8008)

Via SSL:

(Ex: https://your.server.name.or.ip.address:8009)

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Depending on whether or not another web server is running on the system, the HTTPSTK NLM may be listening on the standard HTTP port 80 as well. By default HTTPSTK listens on port 8008 for standard HTTP connections and on port 8009 for SSL encrypted connections. The NetWare Remote Manager, which also runs on HTTPSTK, provides an interface for configuring which ports HTTPSTK is listening on. You may specify the ports on the HTTPSTK.NLM LOAD command as well. Also, you can force the HTTPSTK to always use SSL connections, which will secure the use of the interface on a public network.

Clicking on the “Manage” link will take you to the File System Factory™ Management Interface. Navigate using the buttons at the top. The functions of these buttons are described in the next section, “Using the Management Interface.”

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

The welcome screen has links that will help in getting started in the three external interface pieces, “Executive Dashboard,” “Quota Manger,” and “Workflow.” See chapters 13, 14 and 15 for more details on these interfaces.

Using the Management Interface

The options available from the management interface include:

Admin Dashboard

Configure FSF Engine

Reports/Logfiles

Manage FSF Engine

Manage FSF Policies.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

Admin Dashboard

Admin Dashboard is a feature new to version 1.2. The purpose of this option is to have a quick access point to reports, statistics and data managed by File System Factory™. The options are available on a left menu, with the option “List All Policies” the default starting point. The other options include “Engine Status,” “Event Statistics,” “Volume Statistics,” “Health Check” and “Reports.”

List All Policies

The “List All Polices” page gives a summary list of all the policies in the tree. Policies are eDirectory objects and can exist anywhere in the tree.

This view provides an easily accessible summary of where policies are and some of the properties settings, for easier policy comparison. Elements include the policy Full Distinguished Name, which the administrator may click on and go immediately to the properties of that policy. The summary includes whether the user and/or group properties are in use, the selected distribution algorithm, the default directory quota, the number of paths defined, the selected deletion period, workflow options, and whether quota management is active, along with the specified quota ceiling, and predetermined increment (if specified.) Additional detail on workflow options are found in chapter 15, Workflow, and further detail on Quota Manager is found in chapter 13, Quota Manager.

Engine Status

The Engine Status Page provides the same information that can be seen on the File System Factory™ Engine Console. The engine status indicates whether the engine is accepting and/or processing events. General information includes version information,

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

the NLM start time, number of event server, and events in the queues. It also shows counts of specific operations that have been performed on Group and User objects. These counts are from the time of load.

This same information is available in the “Manage FSF Engine” option. However, this view does not have the controls to turn process and accept events on, nor does it have the option to view the details of the pending events. Those operations are available in the “Manage FSF Engine” option.

Event Statistics

The Event statistics page gives a daily view of the same event statistics that are tracked on the Engine Console. The current day and the previous three days are shown. Counts will be different from the engine status counts as that view counts from engine load time. Events tracked include user and group add, delete, deferred delete, rename, user move and user set policy.

Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide

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Novell FILE SYSTEM FACTORY 1.2.1 ADMINISTRATION GUIDE

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual