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mountcifsnetapp

Using NDMP instead of CIFS mounting

I have a weird but interesting use-case. I use CIFS to mount shares from a File Server (NetApp, EMC etc) to an application server (win/linux server where my application runs). My application needs to process each of the file from the shares that I mount via CIFS. My application also needs access to the meta-data of these files such as Name, Size, ACLs etc.

I would like to see if I can achieve the same via NDMP. I have some very basic questions regarding this use-case. It would be great if you guys can help me out here.

  1. Is this even something which is achievable?
  2. Can I transfer only shares that are interesting to me instead of the entire volume?
Solution

  • NDMP is essentially an application protocol to control backup/restore operations. The protocol is supple enough to do interesting things like data migration or tape cloning as well.

    However it is not a file access protocol so "mounting" anything via NDMP isn't possible unless a NDMP server vendor writes a NDMP extension to do so: which will be a rather silly given there are specialized protocols that do just that.

    Hope this helps.