Greg Jaworski here again…After a lengthy conversation with one of our readers around migrating SYSVOL to DFS-R and some confusion around the various KBs I decided it was worth blogging some best practices and Frequently Asked Questions around SYSVOL and DFS-R.
1. If you have not yet migrated to DFS-R make sure you have the latest version of robocopy. This applies to Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM and SP1. If you are running Windows Server 2012 then robocopy is up to date. This ensures that all of your files don’t end up conflicted and we have to then replicate everything. If you missed or forgot this hotfix you won’t lose data you will just have the files twice essentially. This causes extra replication and storage use. This hotfix will require a reboot due to an update of ntfs.sys http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639043.
2. Update to the latest DFS-R binaries. You can do this prior to the migration since DFS-R will already be running on the DC. Also a good time to check the status of this service and that it wasn’t removed or stopped as part of a server hardening procedure. List of latest binaries http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968429.
a. Install http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2780453 and enable content freshness protection on Windows Server 2008 R2 DCs. Also see http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2009/11/18/implementing-content-freshness-protection-in-dfsr.aspx.
b. Windows Server 2008 R2 install http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2663685 and then enable DFS-R autorecovery as outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2846759. For Windows Server 2012 you just need to enable autorecovery. It is the usual double negative so this should be changed from 1 to 0. Restart the DFS-R service for the change to take effect. There is conflicting information between these two KB articles however after further review we recommend that autorecovery be enabled for Domain Controllers. For file server workloads we recommend that it be disabled.
3. Start the SYSVOL migration and be patient. DFS-R only polls AD once every 60 minutes and that plus replication means it will take some time for DCs to complete each step. We have lots of great blogs and documentation on that procedure so I won’t repeat that here. Please see the references section below for those.
References:
968429 List of currently available hotfixes for Distributed File System (DFS) technologies in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968429/EN-US
2639043 A robocopy command updates DACLs incorrectly in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639043/EN-US
2780453 Event ID 4114 and Event ID 4008 are logged in the DFS Replication log in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2780453/EN-US
2846759 DFSR Event ID 2213 is logged on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2846759/EN-US
Implementing Content Freshness protection in DFSR
SYSVOL Replication Migration Guide: FRS to DFS Replication
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd640019(v=WS.10).aspx
DFSR SYSVOL Migration FAQ: Useful trivia that may save your follicles
Until next time….
Greg “Good Cop” Jaworski