Accessing Snapshots on HPC Home Storage

Owned by marisa-henze
Last updated: Jun 13, 2018 by Adam Harding
3 min read

The home accounts on the HPC systems provide automated point in time snapshots; which retain the state of every file at that point in time. These snapshots are largely client accessible, allowing recovery from change/deletion of many files.

To view the snapshots from Windows:

Windows has a built-in client for viewing snapshots from the file explorer; which allows for directly looking at previous versions of files and folders. This is the same method used to view Windows VSS point in time snapshots from a client.

Right-click on a file or folder inside an HPC home share; and select properties.

There should be a tab named 'Previous Versions' from there; which will allow you to see the versions that are available in snapshots.

It is also possible to browse the snapshots directly. Make sure that you have the address bar visible (which shows the current directory path). If the address bar is not visible, select the "View" menu,  select "Toolbars", and the select "Address Bar". Navigate to the base of the share, then add '\.zfs\snapshot' to the current path in the address bar, and press enter.

 

If the share has been mapped, the base of the share should be the drive letter you mapped it to. This navigates to the hidden folder where snapshots are stored, so you can browse the state of the share at the time of the snapshots. Most of these snapshots will include the date the snapshot was taken in their name.

Note that the date modified does not always match the date of the snapshot. Instead, it should match the date modified at the time of the snapshot.

To view the snapshots from Mac OS X:

The only way to access snapshots on Mac OS X is to navigate to the hidden snapshot folder. This folder is visible over NFS or SMB/CIFS. From the terminal, simply navigate to the base of the share, and to .zfs/snapshot under that. For home accounts, ~/ is the base of the share, so ~/.zfs/snapshot is the snapshot directory. From finder, navigate to the base of the share, and then use the "Go to folder" command (Cmd+Shift+G or select "Go to folder" from the "Go" menu)

 

and enter ".zfs/snapshot".

Most of these snapshots will include the date the snapshot was taken in their name.

 

Note that the date modified does not always match the date of the snapshot. Instead, it should match the date modified at the time of the snapshot.

To view the snapshots from Linux:

The only way to access snapshots on Linux is to navigate to the hidden snapshot folder. This folder is visible over NFS or SMB/CIFS. From the terminal, simply navigate to the base of the share, and to .zfs/snapshot under that. For home accounts, ~/ is the base of the share, so ~/.zfs/snapshot is the snapshot directory. From GUI file browsers, navigate to the base of the share and add .zfs/snapshot to the path. Most of these snapshots will include the date the snapshot was taken in their name. Note that the date modified does not always match the date of the snapshot. Instead, it should match the date modified at the time of  the snapshot.