.fuse_hidden files on NSS volumes

  • 7009301
  • 06-Sep-2011
  • 27-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux Support Pack 2
Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux Support Pack 3
Dynamic Storage Technology

Situation

On Novell NSS volumes a number of strange files were found, that did not seem to have a proper owver and have unknown origin. When deleting these files using either a workstation with the Novell client, or directly from the server console, it turned out the files re-surfaced with a slightly different name.

The files on the volume were of type .fuse_hidden<number>.

In order to determine, who the owner of these file was, the lsof command was used against the file :
E.g. :  lsof .fuse_hidden00013a0e0000033b

As it turned out, the owner of the file was shadowfs :
COMMAND   PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE    NODE NAME
shadowfs 7821 root  167r   REG   0,19 2757 5968821 /media/nss/VOL1/Dir1/Dir2/.fuse_hidden00013a0e0000033b

We learned the server was configured for use with Dynamic Storage Technology (DST) which has a selectable option for specifically ShadowFS, and so this narrowed down our search for a possible root cause of the problem being with DST, and a need to verify the Dynamic Storage Technology configuration in Novell Remote Manager.

Resolution

In a browser, start Novell Remote Manager, and browse to 'View File System ' and than select the 'Dynamic Storage technology Options' section.

On the bottom of the screen, there is a small section called 'ShadowFS Configuration', with just one selectable checkbox in front of 'Load ShadowFS At Boot Time'.

Only when Samba is used together with DST on such servers, this checkbox needs to be selected to make sure that both Samba and NCP users have teh same view of the data. As long as Samba is not being used on this server, that checkbox needs not be selected and DST will still function properly.

Additional Information

Please carefully read the relevant requirements for DST and ShadowFS at Section 5.0 Installing and Configuring ShadowFS for Novell Samba Users