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Import storage and access from a file Preview
This is the second half of importing users from another product. The Portal half created the accounts; this half creates the storage on the machine that holds the files, and grants each account what the old server granted it. It reads the same export file, so nothing has to be typed twice, and it never sees anything the Portal did not: the file's storage paths stay on this machine.
Before you start
- Run the Portal half first. This Connector can only grant users your site has already synced to it; users still missing show as Not synced yet and are skipped until you rerun the import.
- Do this on the Connector that holds the home folders first. Your site's server makes the storage that was granted first a user's home folder. A user whose home is on another Connector is flagged in the review step.
- Know the paths. The file names folders as the old server saw them (
D:\Data\Users\alice,/srv/ftp/alice). When the same folders live under a different path here, you map the prefix.
Run the import
- Open Users in the Connector Admin UI and choose Import from a file.
- Drop the export file on the dialog, or choose it. Files up to 64 MiB are accepted. Leave the format on Detect from the file unless the file was not recognized; for a Cerberus export, enter the PBKDF2 round count from its settings.xml.
- Choose Next. The Connector checks every storage location the file names against this machine.
Storage on this machine
Each row is one distinct storage location the file names, with the users that reach it and how many of them call it their home.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Exists | A virtual file system already points at this path; it is reused. |
| Ready | The directory exists here; a virtual file system will be created for it. |
| Directory missing | The path is absolute on this machine but nothing is there. Either the path needs a prefix map, or you want Create missing directories. |
| Other platform | A Windows path on a Linux Connector, or the reverse. Map the prefix. |
| Not absolute | The path is relative or still holds a placeholder the import does not know. Map the prefix. |
| Backslash in path | A Linux Connector cannot read a backslash as a separator. Map the prefix. |
| Inside the data directory | The path is inside the Connector's own data directory, which is never served. |
To map a prefix, enter the old prefix exactly as the file spells it and the path it corresponds to on this machine, then choose Re check. D:\Data mapped to /srv/data turns D:\Data\Users\alice into /srv/data/Users/alice. Prefixes from a Windows server match regardless of letter case. Add as many rows as you need; the first one that matches wins.
Tick the rows that live on this machine. Leave the rest to the Connector that holds them. A row that is not usable cannot be ticked. The name a created virtual file system gets is the name most users mounted it under in the old server, or the last part of its path.
Review
The review step says how many storage locations will be created or reused and how many synced users will be granted, and warns about three things:
- Not synced yet: users in the file this Connector has not received. Rerun the import later.
- Home elsewhere: users whose home folder is not among the ticked rows. If their home lives on another Connector, import that Connector first. If it must live here, tick its row. Otherwise set a custom folder map for them in the Portal afterwards (see Users).
- Access exists: users who already hold access to other storage on this Connector. Your site's server treats the earliest granted storage as the home, so for these users the imported home will not be the root unless you adjust their folder map in the Portal.
Apply
Choose Import. The Connector creates the ticked storage, then grants the users: each user's home folder first, then their other folders, so the home is the earliest grant. Permissions come from the file (see Permissions for what the twelve verbs mean). A user who reaches one folder gets the single folder set the give access wizard would create; a user who reaches several gets a folder set of their own, labelled imported.
Back in the Portal, the Users list shows Automatic storage for these users. Repeat the import on any other Connector that holds the rest of the storage.
Rerunning an import
Running the same file again changes nothing that is already done: storage is found by path, a user's access on a folder is left exactly as it is (including permissions you changed by hand), and nothing is deleted. Users that were not synced the first time are granted on the rerun.
Limits worth knowing
- A Connector on a shared server may bring at most 1024 distinct storage locations into existence on that server over its lifetime, 8192 on a dedicated server. Deleting a virtual file system does not give its slot back. An old server with one folder per user counts one location per user.
- A file that names thousands of users is granted in batches of 200; the dialog shows the progress.