IFS Cloud - SMB Storage

@SHAUN_KERSLAKE 

Hi Shaun,

Thanks for asking here.

Firstly, you made the right choice to start to look into the new (in 23R1) support for SMB in IFS Cloud File Storage (Remote Deployment). A feature which IFS Document Management automatically gets access to via the support for the "File Storage" repository option in our basic data.

You mentioned the documentation, so I guess you might have started here:

https://docs.ifs.com/techdocs/23r1/030_administration/210_cloud_file_storage/#remote_deployment

That links to a large piece of documentation, on how to configure IFS Cloud File Storage for Remote deployment:

https://docs.ifs.com/techdocs/23r1/070_remote_deploy/400_installation_options/120_file_storage_for_remote/

Did you review the sub pages there, and the details presented? I haven't personally tried to set that up, but the instructions looks like detailed.

Therefore, we need guidance on what user(s) need access on the SMB share, and whether we need to be creating an active directory user specific for IFS or if by some magic IFS will handle this communication from within the setup.

I think there is no magic involved. You just need to make sure you have one user that you can configure, according to the example on this page:

https://docs.ifs.com/techdocs/23r1/070_remote_deploy/400_installation_options/120_file_storage_for_remote/122_installation_guide/#configure_smb_share_path

That should be it. If the user needs to be part of the AD or not is, I think, a detail that your IT dept. need to decide. I guess it depends on the details of the network share that has been set up or will be set up.

Also, FYI, it's the IFS backend/middle tier/"application server" (Kubernetes cluster and the pods and containers within) that will use this user to access the network share. The end users of the system will be granted access as usual in Docman (or the other parts of IFS that might make use of IFS Cloud File Storage).

Let me know if this is enough. If not I can ping some other people that has worked with the details of the SMB setup for IFS Cloud File Storage (of which Docman is one "consumer" or use case).

Thanks!
 

> IT have created a Windows share,  as this is a Windows server, SMB is native so no Samba needed.

It doesn't matter if it's a Windows or Linux server and there is also no need to install Samba, and that's because File Storage uses native SMB support of Kubernetes.

You could try out the "shared" folder support of our File Storage migration tool, described here:

https://docs.ifs.com/techdocs/23r2/030_administration/210_cloud_file_storage/fsmigtool/#ftp_and_shared_repository_support

It was made for Cloud Deployment but I think it might work also for Remote now that File Storage works in Remote. This has not been tested though.

You could copy the files manually, but you would need to change the "file pointer" in Docman as well as add some metadata used by File Storage. It's not rocket science to understand how it fits together, but you also need to get the details right.

Some related posts:

https://community.ifs.com/document-management-docman-248/put-file-into-file-storage-42687
https://community.ifs.com/framework-and-experience-101/where-are-the-attached-files-physically-stored-in-ifs-2541

https://community.ifs.com/document-management-docman-248/moving-adding-files-in-directory-to-document-management-22410

https://community.ifs.com/document-management-docman-248/ftp-move-documents-17261?postid=64290#post64290

The posts above has information on how Docman keeps track of files. It's relatively easy to understand and it's all in two tables really. Once you understand how that works, understanding on how to change the file pointers comes with it.

IFS Cloud File Storage keeps track of its metadata in the fss_files_tab table. Once you have the FS set up, upload a file to a Docman repository that uses it and look at the data in that table. You will understand how it fits together.