1. A method for accessing a distributed storage system, the method comprising: defining storage-level access control rules for a plurality of clients and a plurality of first file system objects of the distributed storage system; receiving a file system request from a particular client among the clients to access a second file system object in a particular first file system object among the first file system objects at a distributed file system; performing a storage-level access control process, at the distributed file system, to determine whether the particular client has access to the particular first file system object using an identifier of the particular client and the storage-level access control rules; and allowing the particular client access to the second file system object in the particular first file system only if the particular client has been determined to have access to the particular first file system object according to the storage-level access control rules.