DFS - Not Working After DC Rebuild

[gavm99]

Hi all,

There is quite a lot of info on this scenario but I will keep it simply.

I have 2 x Windows 2003 Servers that are both DC's. One of them (the PDC) was rolled back to its state a month ago.
Since that roll back DFS is no longer working.

My defination of no longer working is that the files are not being replicated between the servers. All the files exist on one server, not on the other. I have tried breaking the old
links and creating new ones but this still hasn't helped.
This means any user who is pointing to the server which has no files in its DFS share obviously can't see anything.

Has anyone had this before? Has anyone come across issues with DFS before? Any recommendations on the setup of DFS?

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[basst]

Did you check the server logs for any FRS errors?

 

[Atomic]

What do you mean by rolled back? This is worrying..

Does this mean that your domain no longer has a PDC emulator? What other FSMO roles have you lost?

I suggest you google on ntdsutil or check the domain properties in ADU&C and move all the FSMO roles to the known good server. Then dcpromo the failing server out of a DC role. Delete all the site and site2site links associated with that server. Leave if for an hour (check for errors) to make sure changes are propagted and then dcpromo it back in again.

Regards

Martyn

 

[sutors]

1st: Define roll back.

Is your AD replication working fine?

FRS works based on change orders and inbound/outbound logs, depending how you restored the other server, it is possible that you broke the replication. (think of it as USN rollback for AD, but for FRS)

I would do the following test.

Create a new replication group between those two servers.
Put a text file on each server and see if that replicates.

If it replicates, then it means that your current group with your production files needs to be fixed.

If it doesnt then you have other problems and FRS is just a symptom of something else.

If the above test works, depending how much data you have, I would perform non authoritative restore on the server that is missing files, and authoritative restore on the server with files (D4/D2)

For the time being, you can turn off the referral for the server with missing files, so all your users will only get the server with files.

Any errors or warnings from your FRS log would be helpful.