Sharing of nested datasets (or merging to parent)

TrueNAS General
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1

So I currently have the following structure:
/foo/bar/ds1
/foo/bar/ds2
/foo/bar/ds3

Each dsX is also an SMB share. I would like to now share /foo/bar over SMB and have dsX datasets as folders within the SMB share.

Just enabling the SMB share on /foo/bar gives me an empty shared folder. Is there a way to share nested datasets in this case? If not, I guess I’ll have to copy the data to the parent /foo/bar dataset, but that will probably give me a big reset (I’ve ran these dsX-es for over 7 years now). I would like to keep all the created and modified file properties, the history, etc. Snapshots, cloud sync tasks and replications are currently already done on /foo/bar/ level

I found this topic, but it is of no help: freebsd - Destroying zfs dataset, migrating data to parent dataset - Server Fault

Any suggestions, other than to make folders on the /foo/bar SMB share and copy over via file explorer (intentionally putting out the worst option to get suggestions that make a modicum of sense compared to this one)?

2

Which version of TrueNAS? What SMB options? What client?

On TrueNAS Core 13.3, if I share a parent dataset over SMB, then I can browse into child datasets as if they were folders in the same share.[1]

  1. As long as the user has sufficient permissions. ↩︎

3

TrueNAS: Scale Electric Eel 24.10.1
Client: Windows 10 PC, File Explorer
SMB options:
-ACL filesystem permissions copied from one of the dsX datasets to the /foo/bar parent and then propagated (recursive and include child datasets), so all correct permissions enabled.
-SMB share options enabled: Purpose is private SMB datasets and shares, ACL enabled, browsable to Network Clients, Enable Shadow Copies, Data Streams and SMB2/3 Durable Handles. The rest is turned off.

4

No additional comments?

5

This might be one for @awalkerix.

Did you try creating a new test SMB share with the default preset to see if it works at all?

6

Not really. Looks like a simple user misconfiguration. If user has configured “private datasets”, then on SMB connection a new dataset is created for the user and the SMB session is locked into that dataset. If your share path is /mnt/dozer/share/bob, then you of course won’t have access to /mnt/dozer/share. If this isn’t the desired behavior, don’t enable the feature :wink:

7

@Primoz wants to do the opposite.

If they share /mnt/dozer/share, then they also want to be able to access and navigate into the nested child datasets, as if those are subfolders.

Share this:
/mnt/dozer/share

Have access to and navigate into these:
/mnt/dozer/share/ds1
/mnt/dozer/share/ds2
/mnt/dozer/share/ds3

All from a single SMB share with the root directory /mnt/dozer/share.

8

He explicitly configured the SMB share to not do what you’re talking about.

9

True. :slightly_smiling_face:

So @Primoz:

10

Tried it, looks to be working. If I choose ‘Default share parameters’ it works. I had ‘Private SMB Datasets and Shares’ chosen before when I was testing things.

Anyone willing to elaborate on what the difference between the two options (or all of them in the dropdown) is?

11

We have documentation for this.

1 Like
12

After multiple searches and links visited from both here and Reddit - this was the winner after I had to reset my TrueNAS config. You rule!