Managing SMB shares using MMC

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is a Windows tool that can be used to do basic configuration tasks on an SMB server. These tasks include administrative tasks such as listing or closing the connected users and open files, and creating and manipulating SMB shares. You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for managing SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale™ cluster.

Attention: Listing a large number of entities (thousands of files, connections, locks, etc.) using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) might take a very long time and it might impact the performance of the file server. In these cases, it is recommended to use server-side administration tools.

Ensure that the following tasks are complete before you manage SMB shares:

  • IBM Spectrum Scale is installed and configured.
  • The SMB protocol is enabled and healthy SMB services are running on all protocol nodes.
  • Required SMB shares are created and mounted from the Windows client.
  • Microsoft Active Directory (AD) based authentication is set up. This includes:
    • Cluster nodes and client are domain members.
    • The client on which Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is running is a domain member.
    • Accurate DNS information is configured. If active sessions are listed, MMC tries to do a reverse pointer record lookup with DNS for every session (client IP), and if that fails then MMC hangs.
    • Involved NetBIOS names can be resolved using DNS.

    For using the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in, you must be a member of the local administrators group of the cluster. After joining the cluster to an AD domain, only the domain admins group is a member of the administrators group of the cluster.

    To add other users who can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in:

    1. Connect to MMC as a user that is a member of the domain admins group.
    2. Navigate to System Tools > Local Users and Groups and add a user to the local administrators group.

    For more information, see the Microsoft Management Console documentation.

The following MMC features are not supported for managing SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster:

  • Audit of MMC read operations
  • Event viewer
  • Setting max connections per share
  • Connecting to SMB shares by using MMC
    You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for connecting to SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Creating SMB shares using MMC
    You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for creating SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Modifying or removing SMB shares using MMC
    You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for modifying or removing SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Managing ACLs of SMB shares using MMC
    You can use Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for managing access control lists (ACLs) of SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Modifying offline settings of SMB shares using MMC
    You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for modifying offline settings of SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Viewing active connections to SMB shares using MMC
    You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for viewing active connections to SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Disconnecting active connections to SMB shares using MMC
    You can use Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for disconnecting active connections to SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Viewing open files in SMB shares using MMC
    You can use Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for viewing open files in SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
  • Viewing the number of locks on files in SMB shares using MMC
    You can use the Shared Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in on Microsoft Windows clients for viewing the number of locks on open files in SMB shares on the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.
Parent topic: Managing SMB shares