Both backup administrators and users on client machines must be aware of limitations that apply when backing up files that are used by both UNIX®-based and Windows®-based clients.
First, if you request a backup from a UNIX-based client, you must have read permissions on all files and search permissions on all directories (typically a root user). To request a backup from a Windows-based client, you must have read permissions on all files and list-folder-contents permissions on all folders.
Second, to avoid losing security attributes, you must organize the file system in a special way. There are two options:
The special naming conventions are for user and administrator benefit only. SAN File System does not interpret them in any way. In addition, if a directory or folder grants search or "list folder contents" permissions to "other" or "everyone," SAN File System does not prevent an administrator or any client user from creating a file that violates the convention.
Therefore, administrators and users must be aware of the naming conventions when performing backups, and ensure that backups of files in specially named directories are performed only from the same type of client that created the files. This means that, in an environment that has both UNIX and Windows clients, the backup process must be divided into multiple parts to prevent the loss of security attributes for files. The number of parts could be as few as two, or as many as the number of directories in the global namespace, depending on the capabilities of the native backup utility that a client uses.
Parent topic: File-based data backup and restore