Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance: Auto snapshot contents not viewable in Windows Explorer (File Manager) with 2013.x appliance software

Asset ID:	1-72-1984956.1
Update Date:	2018-05-02
Keywords:

Solution Type Problem Resolution Sure

Solution 1984956.1 : Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance: Auto snapshot contents not viewable in Windows Explorer (File Manager) with 2013.x appliance software

Applies to:

Sun ZFS Storage 7420 - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3-4 - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3-BA - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3-2 - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Sun Storage 7210 Unified Storage System - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
7000 Appliance OS (Fishworks)

Symptoms

Logged into a Windows host as a privileged user (for example with a domain admin account), when one browses to the \.zfs\snapshot directory of an appliance share and attempts to view any of the scheduled snapshots there, the following error is seen:

error seen when attmepting to view snapshot

From other types of clients (Linux, Solaris, VMware), changing to a specific snapshot directory shows the expected contents of the snapshot.

For search purposes, the message in text form is included below.

T:\.zfs\snapshot\.auto-2015-05-27T14:20:00UTC refers to a location that is unavailable. It
could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network. Check to make sure that the disk
is properly inserted, or that you are connected to the Internet or your network, and then try
again. If it still cannot be located, the information might have been moved to a different
location.

Cause

Scheduled snapshots create file names based on times with colon (:) delimiters in them. Windows considers the colon a reserved character and not valid for filenames.

Solution

To access the contents of an auto-generated snapshot in Windows Explorer (File Manager):

-> Right click on the desired directory and click 'Restore previous versions'
-> Click on the appropriate snapshot and click open

All the files and folders in the previous state can be accessed in this way.

Engineering work is progressing to resolve the issue of 'colons in directory names'.

The issue of 'colons in directory names' is being handled in Bug 18531232:

18531232 (Scheduled Snapshot filename uses Windows reserved character :(colon))

References

<BUG:18531232> - SCHEDULED SNAPSHOT FILENAME USES WINDOWS RESERVED CHARACTER :

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