EXECUTING A CLOUD COMMAND FOR A DISTRIBUTED FILESYSTEM

The disclosed embodiments disclose techniques for executing a cloud command for a distributed filesystem. Two or more cloud controllers collectively manage distributed filesystem data that is stored in one or more cloud storage systems; the cloud controllers ensure data consistency for the stored data, and each cloud controller caches portions of the distributed filesystem. During operation, a cloud controller presents a distributed-filesystem-specific capability to a client system as a file in the distributed filesystem (e.g., using a file abstraction). Upon receiving a request from the client system to access and/or operate upon this file, the client controller executes an associated cloud command. More specifically, the cloud controller initiates a specially-defined operation that accesses additional functionality for the distributed filesystem that exceeds the scope of individual reads and writes to a typical data file.