Jens Ole Kragh's Blog

This cool tool has been upgraded!

Download here.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d00e3eae-930a-42b0-b595-66f462f5d87b&DisplayLang=en

Just a ping for the Windows 7 RTM news.

Configuration Manager 2007 RTM Hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969991

Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 Hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970093

Cool, now my next SCCM project can kickoff ;-)

Recently one of my customers call me and wanted me to take a look at his DFS replication. All files didn’t replicate to the headquarter from the Branch Offices. Is that a problem? Yes it’s a big problem since backup only runs at the datacenter servers. That’s why we replicate all files to the datacenter in the first place!

Hmm, I did a check up at all replicated folders and found a couple of errors and dead replication members, but nothing seemed to relate to the files not getting replicated and DFS-R seemed to work as it should. I found out that all the files not getting replicated were PDF files and all PDF files were company contracts? But other PDF files replicated okay!

After a little investigation I found that all PDF files were scanned from a multi-copy printer and that lead me to check the files scanned with that printer. After scanning a document, the document is mailed to you and you are able to save the PDF files to your Namespace….but the PDF file did not replicate to the headquarter, WHY?

There is a pretty good explanation.

Checking the PDF files, I found out that all the PDF files not replicating were marked as temp files. DFS-R don’t replicate files marked as temp files, of course, why replicate a file that’s going to be deleted soon. So all PDF files scanned with that printer was marked as temp files (temp attribute), not so good. My customer worked out a temporary solution. All scanned documents are opened in Adobe Acrobat and saved from there to the Namespace, resulting in a PDF File that get’s replicated. My customer is now contacting the manufacturer of the printer to get a solution.

DFS-R cannot be configured to replicate files with the temp attribute

But how did I see the temporary stamp on the files?
Using fsutil.exe (part of Windows OS) you are able to see the attributes at the file. Using Explorer, attrib.exe don’t display the attribute.

fsutil usn readdata D:\shares\Production\Contract.pdf

Major Version : 0x2
Minor Version : 0x0
FileRef# : 0x0021000000002350
Parent FileRef# : 0x0003000000005f5e
Usn : 0x000000004e531000
Time Stamp : 0x0000000000000000 12:00:00 AM 1/1/1601
Reason : 0x0
Source Info : 0x0
Security Id : 0x5fb
File Attributes : 0x120
File Name Length : 0x10
File Name Offset : 0x3c
FileName : Contract.pdf

File Attributes is a bitmask.
0x100 (Temporary) and 0x20 (Archive) = 0x120 indicates the temporary attribute is set.

Other values

READONLY 0x1
HIDDEN 0x2
SYSTEM 0x4
DIRECTORY 0x10
ARCHIVE 0x20
DEVICE 0x40
NORMAL 0x80
TEMPORARY 0x100
SPARSE_FILE 0x200
REPARSE_POINT 0x400
COMPRESSED 0x800
OFFLINE 0x1000
NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED 0x2000
ENCRYPTED 0x4000

Now lets create a replica of a folder already published in DFS. It’s fairly simple, if DFS is already installed at all involved servers, all services will be started automatically.

In the DFS Management console right click the Folder you want to replicate, in this case the Sales folder and choose Add Folder Target

Enter the UNC path to the server where the Folder is going to replicate to and press OK

Now DFS can see that the Folder has two Folder Targets, that’s why you are presented to the question: Do you want to create a replication group?. And the answer is…Yes

and the Replicate Folder Wizard turns up. At the first page I have never changed something as it is presenting information I already have entered, Next

Replication members are listed, Next

Choose the Primary Member. The Primary member is used if files are present at both replication members for example if you have a Folder in DFS which is already in use and you want to replicate that data to server2 in another location. Then you can copy the data to a DVD and send the DVD to the location and the copy the data to the server there (Prestaging). When you create your replication, the Primary member, is where you have the most recent data, if a file should exist at both servers. Select Primary Member, Next

Choose Replication Topology. As we only are replication between two servers, we can only choose Full Mesh. Hub and spoke topology is used in larger environments and requires at least 3 members. Next

Choose Replication Schedule and Bandwidth. At this time we’ll choose Full Bandwidth. Controlling bandwidth will be covered in the next part. Next

Information page is showed. Create

You’re done. Close

Now when Active Directory replication takes place the replication members will get aware of the new configuration and will start replicating the files. Until then, some errors can or will occur in the event log, that quite ok.

Next part will cover controlling the bandwidth used when replicating files using DFS-R