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Version: 2.15.0

Unlock My Files for Disaster Recovery for Dell

Introduction​

Unlock My Files is an Eyeglass desktop application that lets an administrator — or a help desk user delegated through role-based access control (RBAC) — search for and release locked SMB files on a PowerScale cluster, without requiring direct permissions on the cluster itself.

Users frequently leave files open and locked, which otherwise requires locating the PowerScale node holding the open file and manually issuing a command to break the lock. Unlock My Files replaces that manual process with a searchable interface.

Requirements
  • PowerScale OneFS 8.x or later.
  • The service account used to add the cluster to Eyeglass must support the sudo command over SSH.

What This Feature Does and Does Not Cover​

  • Only files that are locked and opened with write permissions are displayed. Applications that open files read-only — for example, Notepad or WordPad opening a file for viewing — do not place a lock and will not appear.
  • Not every application uses persistent file handles. If an open file does not use a persistent handle, it will not show up in results, even if it is genuinely open. Whether an application locks files this way is application-dependent, not something Eyeglass controls.
  • This feature is designed to search for a specific open file, not to produce a complete inventory of every open or locked file on a cluster.
  • A search returns a maximum of 100 files.

The Use Case​

  1. Unlock My Files is a dedicated sidebar item (under Disaster Recovery) with its own delegated permission, so a help desk role can be granted access without full administrative rights.
  2. Search for a file by name or partial string match.
  3. Locate the file in the results list.
  4. Click the break lock button.

Step 1: Grant the Admin Role Access​

Before anyone can use this feature, the permission must be enabled on at least the admin role:

  1. Log in as admin.
  2. Open Settings (gear icon, top-right of any page) → General → User Roles & Permissions.
  3. Find the file lock portal permission (FILE_LOCK_PORTAL) and enable it for the role.
  4. Save the role.

Step 2: Delegate to a Help Desk Role (Optional)​

To allow a help desk team to unlock files without granting them broader Eyeglass access, delegate the file lock portal permission through a dedicated RBAC role. See the User Role Guide for the full RBAC setup process, including the AD group naming convention. In summary:

  1. Create a dedicated AD group for this role (for example, helpdesk-fileunlock). The group name must be all lower case, with no spaces or special characters.
  2. Open Settings (gear icon, top-right of any page) → General → User Roles & Permissions and create a new role — for example, Help Desk.
  3. Add the AD group to this role using the syntax DOMAIN\groupname, where the domain portion is upper case and the group name is lower case.
  4. Add the file lock portal permission to the role and save.

Step 3: Find and Release a Locked File​

  1. Open Unlock My Files and type the file name, or a partial match of the file name.

    note

    Do not enter the access zone name or any special characters as part of the search — enter plain text only. For example, to find open files in a folder named marketing, search for marketing rather than /ifs/data/marketing.

  2. As the search runs, an indicator shows how many access zones exist and how many have completed. Partial results are returned per access zone as each zone finishes scanning, rather than waiting for the entire search to complete.

  3. Once every access zone has finished, the interface shows a completed status.

  4. Use the show only locked files filter to narrow results to files that currently have an active lock.

  5. Click the break lock icon next to the target file, and confirm when prompted.

    caution

    Breaking a lock on a file that an application still has open can result in data loss if the application has not yet committed its changes to disk.

  6. Confirm with the affected user that the file is now unlocked, and have them attempt to reopen it.

Best Practices​

  • Search using only the file name or a fragment of the containing directory name — do not include the full cluster path.
  • Files with spaces in the name can be entered exactly as they appear, with no need for quotes around the search term.
  • Only the first 100 matching files are returned. If the file you are looking for is not listed, narrow the search to a more specific match.
  • The locked column reflects whether the client application requested an SMB file lock. If a file does not show as locked, the application that opened it did not request a lock — this is not a sign that the search failed.