Patent ID: 8762434

Claim:
A method comprising: storing, by a storage system, a resource in the storage system according to a firstpathname; configuring one or more entries of an exports table based upon one or more respective export rules for resources to be exported, wherein each of the entries of the exports table includes a filehandle of a resource, wherein each of the export rules includes an advertised path of a respective resource, and wherein said configuring comprises, for each of the one or more entries of the exports table, selecting one of the one or more export rules, when the selected export rule includes a directive identifying a physical path of the resource that is different than the advertised path of the selected export rule, storing, as the filehandle of the exports table entry, a filehandle retrieved using the physical path, and when the export rule does not include the directive, storing, as the filehandle of the exports table entry, a filehandle retrieved using the advertised path; receiving, by the storage system, a mount request from a client that specifies a secondpathname, wherein the second pathname is the advertised path of the resource and does not exist in physical storage of the storage system; in response to the mount request, mapping, by the storage system, the second pathname to a filehandle using an entry of the exports table; and returning the filehandle from the storage system to the client in response to the mount request, without the client having knowledge that the resource is stored according to the firstpathname, to enable the client to access the resource in the storage system with the filehandle.