I've been browsing DFS articles and still can't seem to grasp some of the basic parts. Hopefully someone can explain this to me without name calling :)
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Question 1:
(When dealing with a Domain based Namespace) If I understood it correctly, all the information needed to generate the namespace is stored in meta data along with other active directory info. Why do we specify a namespace server when the namespace data (not the actual files, just the config data) is stored in the Active Directory? I guess I'm still confused as to what the "namespace server" does that isn't already handled by Active Directory, since it's just a DNS type pointer.
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Question 2:
How do I create a new root shared DFS namespace?
For example: I want to create the namespace "Share" (so it will be accessible via "contoso.local/Share"). I want this namespace to point to a remote server share "\\server1\share". I have added DFS to one of my domain controllers (dcserver1) and begin to create a namespace called "contoso.local/Share".
During the creation of the namespace, it asked me to specify "The local path of the shared folder". I'm only able to choose folders that are local my domain controller, so I can't point it to "\\server1\share".Once the namespace is created, I can always add a subfolder through DFS and point it to "\\server1\share", but then I end up with "contoso.local/Share/Share" as my final path.
I'm assuming this would be fixed if I make "server1" my DFS namespace server, but it seems counter intuitive to me. I have multiple servers with shares on them that I want to create namespaces for, and it seems to be wrong to install DFS on each of those servers just so the share can appear in the namespace at a root level.
Furthermore, if I move this "contoso.local/Share" folder target to another server, I just want to update the UNC path in the DFS configuration and be done with it, not reinstall DFS on the new server and recreate the Namespace.
Am I missing something fundamental or is this really the way we are supposed to create our DFS namespace shares?
Eugene