How SnapLock works - FSx for ONTAP
Retention modesSnapLock administratorSnapLock audit log volumesAccessing your data in a SnapLock volume

How SnapLock works

SnapLock can help you meet regulatory and governance purposes by preventing your files from being deleted, changed, or renamed. When you create a SnapLock volume, you commit your files to write once, read many (WORM) storage and set retention periods for the data. Your files can be stored in a non-erasable, non-writable state for a designated period, or indefinitely.

Important

You must specify whether a volume will use SnapLock settings at the time of creation. A non-SnapLock volume can't be converted to a SnapLock volume after creation.

Retention modes

SnapLock has two retention modes: Compliance and Enterprise. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP supports both of them. They have different use cases and some of the features differ, but they both protect your data from modification or deletion using the WORM model. The following table explains some of the similarities and differences between these retention modes.

SnapLock feature SnapLock Compliance SnapLock Enterprise
Description Files transitioned to WORM on a Compliance volume can't be deleted until their retention periods expire. Files transitioned to WORM on an Enterprise volume can be deleted by authorized users before their retention periods expire using privileged delete.
Use cases

  • To address government or industry-specific mandates such as SEC Rule 17a-4(f), FINRA Rule 4511, and CFTC Regulation 1.31.

  • To protect against ransomware attacks.

  • To advance an organization's data integrity and internal compliance.

  • To test retention settings before using SnapLock Compliance.

Autocommit Yes Yes
Event-based retention (EBR)* Yes Yes
Legal Hold* Yes No
Privileged delete No Yes
Volume-append mode Yes Yes
SnapLock audit log volumes Yes Yes

*EBR and Legal Hold operations are supported in the ONTAP CLI and REST API.

Note

FSx for ONTAP supports tiering data to the capacity pool on all SnapLock volumes, regardless of the SnapLock type. For more information, see Volume data tiering.

SnapLock administrator

You must have SnapLock administrator privileges to perform certain actions on SnapLock volumes. SnapLock administrator privileges are defined in the vsadmin-snaplock role in the ONTAP CLI. You must be a cluster administrator to create a storage virtual machine (SVM) administrator account with the SnapLock administrator role.

You can perform the following actions with the vsadmin-snaplock role in the ONTAP CLI:

  • Manage your own user account, local password, and key information

  • Manage volumes, except moving volumes

  • Manage quotas, qtrees, snapshot copies, and files

  • Perform SnapLock actions, including privileged delete and Legal Hold

  • Configure Network File System (NFS) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols

  • Configure Domain Name System (DNS), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), and Network Information Service (NIS) services

  • Monitor jobs

The following procedure details how to create a SnapLock administrator in the ONTAP CLI. You must be logged in as a cluster administrator on a secure connection, such as Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) to perform this task.

To create an SVM administrator account with the vsadmin-snaplock role in the ONTAP CLI

  • Run the following command. Replace SVM_name and SnapLockAdmin with your own information.

    cluster1::> security login create -vserver SVM_name -user-or-group-name SnapLockAdmin -application ssh -authentication-method password -role vsadmin-snaplock

SnapLock audit log volumes

A SnapLock audit log volume contains SnapLock audit logs, which contain timestamps of events such as when a SnapLock administrator was created, when privileged delete operations were executed, or when a Legal Hold was placed on files. The SnapLock audit log volume is a non-erasable record of events.

You must create a SnapLock audit log volume in the same SVM as the SnapLock volume for the following actions:

  • To turn on or turn off privileged delete on a SnapLock Enterprise volume.

  • To apply Legal Hold on a file in a SnapLock Compliance volume.

Warning

  • The minimum retention period for a SnapLock audit log volume is six months. Until this retention period expires, the SnapLock audit log volume and the SVM and file system that are associated with it can't be deleted even if the volume was created in SnapLock Enterprise mode.

  • If a file is deleted using privileged delete and its retention period is longer than the retention period of the volume, then the audit log volume inherits the file's retention period. For example, if a file that has a retention period of 10 months is deleted using privileged delete and the retention period of the audit log volume is six months, the retention period of the audit log volume is extended to 10 months.

You can have only one active SnapLock audit log volume in an SVM, but it can be shared by multiple SnapLock volumes in the SVM. To mount a SnapLock audit log volume successfully, set the junction path to /snaplock_audit_log. No other volumes can use this junction path, including volumes that aren't audit log volumes.

You can find SnapLock audit logs in the /snaplock_log directory under the root of the audit log volume. Privileged delete operations are logged in the privdel_log subdirectory. Legal Hold begin and end operations are logged in /snaplock_log/legal_hold_logs/. All other logs are stored in the system_log subdirectory.

You can create a SnapLock audit log volume with the Amazon FSx console, the AWS CLI, the Amazon FSx API, and the ONTAP CLI and REST API.

Note

A data protection (DP) volume can't be used as a SnapLock audit log volume.

To turn on the SnapLock audit log volume with the Amazon FSx API, use AuditLogVolume in the CreateSnaplockConfiguration. In the Amazon FSx console, for Audit log volume, choose Enabled. Make sure that the Junction path is set to /snaplock_audit_log.

Accessing your data in a SnapLock volume

You can use open file protocols such as NFS and SMB to access your data in a SnapLock volume. There is no performance impact from writing data to a SnapLock volume or from reading data that's protected by WORM.

You can copy files across SnapLock volumes with NFS and SMB, but they won't retain their WORM properties on the destination SnapLock volume. You must recommit the copied files to WORM to prevent them from being modified or deleted. For more information, see Committing files to WORM state.

You can also replicate SnapLock data with SnapMirror, but the source and destination volumes must be SnapLock volumes with the same retention mode (for example, both must be Compliance or Enterprise).