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Using SMB Shadow Copy

  3 minute read.

Last Modified 2024-01-26 15:06 EST

Enable Shadow Copies exports ZFS snapshots as Shadow Copies for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) clients.

About SMB Shadow Copies

Shadow Copies, also known as the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) or Previous Versions, is a Microsoft service for creating volume snapshots. You can use shadow copies to restore previous versions of files from within Windows Explorer.

By default, all ZFS snapshots for a dataset underlying an SMB share path are presented to SMB clients through the volume shadow copy service or are accessible directly with SMB when the hidden ZFS snapshot directory is within the SMB share path.

Before you activate Shadow Copies in TrueNAS, there are a few caveats:

  • Shadow Copies might not work if you have not updated the Windows system to the latest service pack. If previous versions of files to restore are not visible, use Windows Update to ensure the system is fully up-to-date.

  • Shadow Copies support only works for ZFS pools or datasets.

  • You must configure SMB share dataset or pool permissions appropriately.

Enabling Shadow Copies

To enable shadow copies, go to Shares > Windows (SMB) Shares and locate the share.

If listed on the widget, select the Edit option for the share.

If not listed, click Windows (SMB) Shares launch to open the Sharing > SMB list-view screen. Select the share, then click the more_vert for the share, then click Edit to open the Edit SMB screen.

Click Advanced Options, scroll down to Other Options, and then select Enable Shadow Copies.

Click Save.

Windows 10 v2004 Issue

Some users might experience issues in the Windows 10 v2004 release where they cannot access network shares. The problem appears to come from a bug in gpedit.msc, the Local Group Policy Editor.

Unfortunately, setting the Allow insecure guest logon flag value to Enabled in Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Lanman Workstation in Windows does not affect the configuration.

To work around this issue, edit the Windows registry. Use Regedit and go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters. The DWORD AllowInsecureGuestAuth is an incorrect value: 0x00000000. Change this value to 0x00000001 (Hexadecimal 1) to allow adjusting the settings in gpedit.msc. You can use a Group Policy Update to apply the edit to a fleet of Windows machines.

Deleting Shadow Copies

Users with an SMB client cannot delete Shadow copies. Instead, the administrator uses the TrueNAS web interface to remove snapshots.

Disable shadow copies for an SMB share by clearing the Enable shadow copies checkbox on the Edit SMB screen in the Other Options on the Advanced Options screen for the SMB share. Disabling does not prevent access to the hidden .zfs/snapshot directory for a ZFS dataset when it is within the path for an SMB share.

Related Content

SCALE Tutorials
SCALE Getting Started
SCALE UI Reference
SCALE CLI Reference

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