2.7 What’s New or Changed in NSS (OES 2015)

NSS provides the following enhancements and changes in OES 2015:

8 Exabyte (EiB) Pools and Volumes

Two Pool Types: Beginning with OES 2015, NSS supports two pool types:

Pool Type

Maximum Pool Size

Supported OES Versions

NSS32 (32-bit)

8 Terabytes (TB)

OES 2015 and earlier

NSS64 (64-bit)

8 Exabytes (EB)

OES 2015 only

Pool Type Cannot Be Changed: The NSS pool type (NSS32 or NSS64) is specified upon creation and cannot be changed.

32-bit and 64-bit Volumes Cannot Coexist: A pool cannot contain both NSS 32-bit and 64-bit volumes. However, NSS32 and NSS64 bit Pool type can coexist on the same server or on a cluster.

Copying of files between volumes of different types and all other pool to pool and volume to volume interactions are supported.

Pre-OES 2015 Servers Cannot Access NSS64 and NSS32 AD-Enabled Pools: If you have mixed-node clusters, keep in mind that pre-OES 2015 servers cannot provide failover access to NSS64 and NSS32 pools that are enabled for NSS AD integration support (nor the volumes they contain) because of the media change required. This includes the following:

  • Media-Upgraded NSS32 pools and associated volumes

  • All NSS64 pools and associated volumes

Migrating NSS Data from 32-bit to 64-bit: The NSS data is migrated from NSS32 to NSS64 using different methods. For more information, see Migrating NSS Data from NSS32 to NSS64 in the OES 2015 SP1: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux.

Tool Support for 8 EB Pools and Volumes: All of the NSS management utilities and tools have been updated to support 8 EB pools and volumes, including:

IMPORTANT:In all cases, volumes must be AD-enabled to support AD users. Having pool media that supports AD trustee ACLs is a prerequisite to volume enabling, but media support and AD-enabling volumes are two separate things. Both must be in place for NSS AD support to work.

NSS Active Directory Integration

Beginning with OES 2015, authenticated Active Directory (AD) users can natively access NSS resources using a CIFS client, such as Windows Explorer.

For more information, see NSS Active Directory Support in the OES 2015 SP1: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux.

The following points summarize the AD-support changes in OES 2015 and provide links to more information:

Media Change Required: NSS file system support for inserting AD user trustee assignments requires an NSS media change.

For more information, see NSS Media Upgrade in the OES 2015 SP1: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux.

Enabling NSS-AD Support: To prepare NSS pools for AD support, you have three options:

  • Upgrade Existing Pools: Using either nsscon, nssmu, or the iManager Storage plug-in.

  • Enable while Creating New NSS32 Pools: Using either nsscon, nssmu, or the iManager Storage plug-in.

  • Create New NSS64 Pools: AD trustee support is built in.

Limiting Access for AD Users: To limit NSS resource access to only specific AD users, create a universal group with the sAMAccountName OESAccessGrp anywhere in the AD forest.

Tools Support Changes: To support NSS-AD integration, the NSS team has enhanced existing tools and created new tools, as follows:

New General NSS Utilities and Options

Discontinued Commands and Options

Hard Link Media Upgrade Commands: Because all volumes on OES 2015 servers are automatically hard-link media upgraded, the hard link media upgrade commands /ZLSSUpgradeCurrentVolumeMediaFormat and /ZLSSUpgradeNewVolumeMediaFormat have been removed from OES beginning with OES 2015.