A mirrored folder is a directory, either local or shared on a SAN (storage area network), that is directly accessible from the Novell Teaming site. The files on the file system are accessed by the Teaming program using a resource driver, not directly by individual Teaming users. A resource driver defines how the Teaming program accesses the file system.
During installation, you define the users and groups that can access the mirrored folder resource drivers. After installation, from the Teaming site, you associate resource drivers with specific Teaming folders and use folder access controls to govern which users and groups can access the data in the mirrored folder. As a result, you can set up a small number of users who can create mirrored folders, while a large number of users can access shared folders.
Teaming attempts to keep the metadata about each mirrored folder synchronized with the contents of the actual file system. Therefore, mirrored folders are most appropriate for large sets of relatively static data. Mirrored folders are also useful for making extremely large files available from your Teaming site without including them in the Teaming file repository.
Although the Installation program allows you to set up three mirrored folder resource drivers at once, you can set up and test just one to start with, then set up additional resource drivers later.
After planning mirrored folders, complete the planning process for additional Advanced installation features as needed, then perform the Advanced installation as described in Section 10.0, Performing an Advanced Teaming Installation.
Novell Teaming provides resource drivers for two different types of file systems:
file: A directory in a regular file system on a Linux or Windows server.
webdav: A directory on a Web server that supports WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning). The WebDAV server must support HTTP Basic Authentication so that Teaming can provide a username and a password when making a request from the WebDAV server.
The file system on which a Novell Teaming mirrored folder is based can be on Linux, NetWare®, or Windows, as long as the following conditions are met:
The file system is accessible from the Teaming server, by using a directory path specification that the Teaming server operating system understands.
The file system is accessible through the standard java.io package interface.
IMPORTANT:On Windows, you must use forward slashes (/) in the pathname, not the typical Windows back slashes (\). For example, use c:/Documents rather than c:\Documents.
If you need to eventually set up more than three directories as mirrored folders in your Teaming site, you can edit the installer.xml file in the directory where you run the Installation program.
Novell Teaming offers several security options for controlling access to the data that resides on the file system.
You can restrict the Teaming program to read-only access to the mirrored data, or you can allows full read/write access.
You can list specific Teaming users who are allowed to access the mirrored folder resource drivers and thereby create mirrored folders.
You can list specific Teaming groups whose members are allowed to access the mirrored folder resource drivers and thereby create mirrored folders.
For WebDAV mirrored folder resource drivers, you must also specify a username and password that the Teaming program can use to access the WebDAV server.
After you run the Novell Teaming Installation program to configure the Teaming site for mirrored folder resource drivers, additional folder setup is required. Follow the instructions in Setting Up Mirrored Folders
in Site Setup
in the Novell Teaming 2.0 Administration Guide.