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What the default administrative shares are

Contributors netapp-thomi netapp-aherbin
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When you create a CIFS server on your storage virtual machine (SVM), default administrative shares are automatically created. You should understand what those default shares are and how they are used.

ONTAP creates the following default administrative shares when you create the CIFS server:

Note Beginning with ONTAP 9.8, the admin$ share is no longer created by default.

  • ipc$

  • admin$ (ONTAP 9.7 and earlier only)

  • c$

Because shares that end with the $ character are hidden shares, the default administrative shares are not visible from My Computer, but you can view them by using Shared Folders.

How the ipc$ and admin$ default shares are used

The ipc$ and admin$ shares are used by ONTAP and cannot be used by Windows administrators to access data residing on the SVM.

  • ipc$ share

    The ipc$ share is a resource that shares the named pipes that are essential for communication between programs. The ipc$ share is used during remote administration of a computer and when viewing a computer's shared resources. You cannot change the share settings, share properties, or ACLs of the ipc$ share. You also cannot rename or delete the ipc$ share.

  • admin$ share (ONTAP 9.7 and earlier only)

    Note Beginning with ONTAP 9.8, the admin$ share is no longer created by default.

    The admin$ share is used during remote administration of the SVM. The path of this resource is always the path to the SVM root. You cannot change the share settings, share properties, or ACLs for the admin$ share. You also cannot rename or delete the admin$ share.

How the c$ default share is used

The c$ share is an administrative share that the cluster or SVM administrator can use to access and manage the SVM root volume.

The following are characteristics of the c$ share:

  • The path for this share is always the path to the SVM root volume and cannot be modified.

  • The default ACL for the c$ share is Administrator / Full Control.

    This user is the BUILTIN\administrator. By default, the BUILTIN\administrator can map to the share and view, create, modify, or delete files and folders in the mapped root directory. Caution should be exercised when managing files and folders in this directory.

  • You can change the c$ share's ACL.

  • You can change the c$ share settings and share properties.

  • You cannot delete the c$ share.

  • The SVM administrator can access the rest of the SVM namespace from the mapped c$ share by crossing the namespace junctions.

  • The c$ share can be accessed by using the Microsoft Management Console.

Related information

Configuring advanced NTFS file permissions using the Windows Security tab