Nutanix Files Manual: File Server and Share Management

Share and Export Architecture

Nutanix Files supports two distinct share architectures depending on scale and performance requirements:

1. Standard Shares (Non-Distributed)

• Owner: Hosted on a single FSVM node.
• Use Case: General departmental shares, small project folders, low-concurrency data.
• Characteristics: Simple path structure, single Volume Group backing the share.

2. Distributed Shares (Scale-Out Shares)

• Owner: Data and Top-Level Directories (TLDs) are split and served concurrently across all FSVM nodes in the file server instance.
• Use Case: VDI User Profile Disks (FSLogix / VMware DEM), Home Directories, Large Analytics datasets.
• Characteristics: Scale-out throughput; automated load balancing across FSVMs.

SMB Share Configuration

Nutanix Files supports SMB 2.1 and SMB 3.0 (including SMB 3.02 / 3.1.1).

Key SMB Features & Flags

• Continuous Availability (CA): Enables persistent file handles for mission-critical applications (e.g., SQL Server over SMB or Hyper-V). Prevents application failures during FSVM failover.
• Access-Based Enumeration (ABE): Filters directory listings based on client permissions. Users only see files/folders they have read access to.
• SMB Symlinks: Supports creation and resolution of symbolic links across SMB shares.
• Durable Handles: Re-establishes broken TCP sessions transparently after short network interruptions.

# Example CLI view of SMB shares via ncli
ncli file-server list-shares name=<file-server-name>

NFS Export Configuration

Nutanix Files supports NFS v3 and NFS v4.1.

NFS Export Controls & Rules

• Client Access Rules: Restrict exports by IP address, CIDR block, or hostname.
• Access Privilege Levels: Read-Only (RO), Read-Write (RW), or No Access.
• Squash Options:
  • none: Root privileges preserved (no_root_squash).
  • root_squash: Root user mapped to nobody (UID 65534).
  • all_squash: All connected users mapped to anonymous UID/GID.

Directory-Level Quotas and File Blocking

Quotas

• Default User Quota: Sets baseline storage limit for all users on a share.
• Individual User / Group Quota: Specific limits override default quotas.
• Hard Quota: Blocks further writes immediately when limit is reached.
• Soft Quota: Triggers email/Prism alerts while allowing a grace period before blocking.

File Blocking

• Block unwanted file extensions (e.g., .exe, .mp3, .iso, .mp4) at the file server or share level.
• Rejects file creation or rename operations matching blocked extensions.

Last updated Oct 08, 2026