I am working with the Novell Storage Services...

Articles and Tips: qna

01 Jul 2002

I am working with the Novell Storage Services (NSS) API set. I am not able to get zOpen to work for pools.I have a pool called POOL1:

If I try "POOL1," I get 20411 (zPATH_MUST_BE_FULLY_QUALIFIED).
If I try giving path "POOL1:", I get 20801 (zERR_VOLUME_NOT_FOUND).
Now this is on a server called Bombino in context Mamma in tree Mamma. So if I give "\\\mamma\pool1," I get 20405 (zERR_INVALID_PATH).
If I give the NDS object name and say "\\\mamma\bombino_pool1_pool," I get the same 20405 error.

Basically I need to do a zGetInfo on pools. What's the right way to do this? I am using NSS v3.01 (April 15, 2002). Other parameters to zOpen include:

key: the one I got with zRootKey
taskID: the one I got with zBeginTask
namespace: zNSPACE_LONG | zMODE_UTF8
path: described above
requestedRights: zRR_READ_ACCESS

Any and all help would be appreciated.

You can't zOpen a pool. The pool is little more than a metaphor for storage management and has no intrinsic state that could be manipulated by opening it. However, if you open the virtual file(s) for the pool in the _ADMIN: volume you should be able to perform management operations on the pool. This is the approach you should use to get the information you need.

To what extent the virtual files are documented, I am unsure, but I know I can find out. However, it's likely that you can simply read the virtual files for the pool and the XML they contain will explain what you are reading. For the record, zOpen can only open objects that are contained within volumes. So, also for the record, zOpen with the volume name as the path actually creates a key to the root directory and not to the volume itself. Attributes of the volume can be obtained via the virtual files relating to volumes on the _ADMIN: volume.

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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