Offline folder - DFS-issues

NTFSD
1

Hi,

I am trying to troubleshoot an “offline folder” / DFS-issue, and I would be grateful for all advices that can nail down the cause of the problem.

The problem:
The end-user application converts all UNC-paths to “IP-only UNC-paths”. The paths are still valid (and refer to the same files as before, but the dfs-share name is replaced by an ip-address).

As the network is disconnected, it appears as if offline folders creates two disjunctive subsets, one reflecting the IP-only file share, and one referring to the dfs-file share.

As the workstations are re-connected and re-synchronized, it turns into a real mess.

The configuration:
Client: Win7 workstation + antivirus-fsd + “offline folders over DFS-share”
Servers: single DFS-root (3x Win2003 R2 servers + antivirus-fsd, no cluster, just DFS-replica).

As the customer has outsourced all IT-operations, I don?t get any direct access to the servers (in the first round). So, I am looking for some step-by-step, troubleshooting guide for offline folders ? dfs ? fsd interactions, to sort out if the root-cause is within the antivirus-fsd, dfs-setup or a miss-configuration.
?

Questions:

  1. Shall the “fsutil objectid query”-command return identical object-IDs for IP-only-UNC-paths, fileserver-UNC-paths and dfsroot-UNC-paths?

  2. Can the DFS-share be in some bad-state / bad-configuration setup that could leave the share inconsistent? Any indication (Event Viewer, Sonar)?

  3. Are there any tools / test suits for verifying FSD-correctness for DFS-shares and offline folders?

Andreas Nilsson

2

Hi Andreas,

Inside the redirector all references to a file server are seperate server entries. An IP address to the file server and a unc path will be treated as different servers(a canonical name to the server will be a different one as well). Why is the user application resolving to the IP? This is a bad idea in terms of manageability of the namespace. You don’t seem to be having any issues with the DFS share.

Thanks,
Oguzhan

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 17:45:44 -0400
From: xxxxx@live.se
To: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
Subject: [ntfsd] Offline folder - DFS-issues

Hi,

I am trying to troubleshoot an “offline folder” / DFS-issue, and I would be grateful for all advices that can nail down the cause of the problem.

The problem:
The end-user application converts all UNC-paths to “IP-only UNC-paths”. The paths are still valid (and refer to the same files as before, but the dfs-share name is replaced by an ip-address).

As the network is disconnected, it appears as if offline folders creates two disjunctive subsets, one reflecting the IP-only file share, and one referring to the dfs-file share.

As the workstations are re-connected and re-synchronized, it turns into a real mess.

The configuration:
Client: Win7 workstation + antivirus-fsd + “offline folders over DFS-share”
Servers: single DFS-root (3x Win2003 R2 servers + antivirus-fsd, no cluster, just DFS-replica).

As the customer has outsourced all IT-operations, I don?t get any direct access to the servers (in the first round). So, I am looking for some step-by-step, troubleshooting guide for offline folders ? dfs ? fsd interactions, to sort out if the root-cause is within the antivirus-fsd, dfs-setup or a miss-configuration.
?

Questions:

  1. Shall the “fsutil objectid query”-command return identical object-IDs for IP-only-UNC-paths, fileserver-UNC-paths and dfsroot-UNC-paths?

  2. Can the DFS-share be in some bad-state / bad-configuration setup that could leave the share inconsistent? Any indication (Event Viewer, Sonar)?

  3. Are there any tools / test suits for verifying FSD-correctness for DFS-shares and offline folders?

Andreas Nilsson

NTFSD is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars
(including our new fs mini-filter seminar) visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer