A view exposes an Element Store path to one or more client access protocols.
A view specifies the following:
A location within the VAST Element Store that the view exposes to clients.
A view can be created using an existing path in the filesystem, or with a new path (specified during view creation). Deleting a view from the VMS does not delete the underlying path in the filesystem.
In multi-tenant environments, a view also specifies the tenant to which it belongs.
Client access protocols that are allowed to store and access data at the exposed path, along with the respective methods for exposing the path to each enabled protocol.
Available protocols may depend on the tenant configuration and include NFS, SMB, S3 and block access protocols. In addition, you can create views that expose tabular data.
A view policy, which defines various security and protocol-related settings to further control access to the data. For example, you can use a view policy to restrict access by host IP, or to determine how the cluster handles file and directory permissions for multi-protocol access.
Each view policy specifies a Security Flavor (NFS, SMB, Mixed Last Wins, S3 Native, or Block) governing access behavior.
Block Security Flavor: Dedicated security flavor for NVMe block subsystems. It bypasses POSIX mode bits and ACL permission checks, relies strictly on VIP pool restriction, tenant isolation, and host NQN mappings, and prevents access via NFS, SMB, or S3 protocols.
Additional settings for various features, such as Global Synchronization (for replicated views), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), and User Impersonation.
VAST Cluster has one default view. Every view must be assigned a view policy. The same view policy can be used by multiple views.
Initially, a view is preconfigured for access via NFS. It exposes the top location of the file system "/". You can create a default view policy that grants read/write access to all hosts and root squashes all hosts. The default view policy is not automatically created. Both the initially configured view and the default view policy can be modified.
A tenant can be configured with a default view policy for NFS, S3, and/or block access. If configured, the tenant's default view policy is used by default for all views created under that tenant.
When replicating block-enabled views, subsystems created at the destination peer are associated with the default block view policy. You can modify the view policy of subsystems after they are created at the destination peer.
Note
The default block view policy can be defined without virtual IPs for security reasons.
Global synchronization is not supported for block access protocol.