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Restore a file from an ONTAP snapshot on an NFS or SMB client

Contributors netapp-lenida netapp-aaron-holt netapp-ahibbard netapp-aherbin
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A user on an NFS or SMB client can restore a file directly from a snapshot without the intervention of a storage system administrator.

Every directory in the file system contains a subdirectory named .snapshot accessible to NFS and SMB users. The .snapshot subdirectory contains subdirectories corresponding to the snapshots of the volume:

$ ls .snapshot
daily.2017-05-14_0013/              hourly.2017-05-15_1106/
daily.2017-05-15_0012/              hourly.2017-05-15_1206/
hourly.2017-05-15_1006/             hourly.2017-05-15_1306/
Note With NFSv4, the ls command does not display the .snapshot directory, but it is still accessible by the client for file restores.

Each subdirectory contains the files referenced by the snapshot. If users accidentally delete or overwrite a file, they can restore the file to the parent read-write directory by copying the file from the snapshot subdirectory to the read-write directory:

$ ls my.txt
ls: my.txt: No such file or directory
$ ls .snapshot
daily.2017-05-14_0013/              hourly.2017-05-15_1106/
daily.2017-05-15_0012/              hourly.2017-05-15_1206/
hourly.2017-05-15_1006/             hourly.2017-05-15_1306/
$ ls .snapshot/hourly.2017-05-15_1306/my.txt
my.txt
$ cp .snapshot/hourly.2017-05-15_1306/my.txt .
$ ls my.txt
my.txt