Help Creating Site links and more Site Questions

[Brian]

I need some help creating SITE Links. Thanks Cary for
all the helpful information you have been providing.

Here is what I have:

-Active Directory Sites and Services-

Sites - Dallas
Houston
Virginia Beach
Atlanta
Jacksonville
Norco

Subnets -
Dallas Offices
192.168.1.x ( Dallas-Corp )
192.168.2.x ( Plano )
192.168.3.x ( Coit )
192.168.4.x ( Farmers )
Houston Offices
192.168.5.x ( Eldridge )
192.168.6.x ( Clear Lake )
192.168.7.x ( Midtown )
Virginia Beach Office
192.168.8.x ( Virginia Beach )
Atlanta Office
192.168.9.x ( Atlanta )
Jacksonville Office
192.168.10.x ( Jacksonville )
Norco Office
192.168.11.x ( Norco )

How would you create site links for the scenario?

I will associate each subnet with the appropriate site.
The Dallas-corp office has two domain controllers. Each
of the offices will have 1 DC that is a GC and has AD
DNS.


Some other questions:
I After reading MS KB 306602(Section I) and MS KB 247811
I am still confused on how client authentication works
within sites.

Example: I have the Houston site which has 3DC's in it.
There are 3 subnets associated with that site. When a
client trys to authenticate will it first try to find a
DC on its local subnet? If it cannot find one on its
local subnet does it try one of the other DC's in that
site to authenticate against? Does it go to the next
closest site if know DC's are available in that site or
does it go back to the hub site in Dallas.

I am so confused. Please help this AD newbie.

 

[Cary Shultz [MVP]]

-----Original Message-----
I need some help creating SITE Links. Thanks Cary for
all the helpful information you have been providing.

Here is what I have:

-Active Directory Sites and Services-

Sites - Dallas
Houston
Virginia Beach
Atlanta
Jacksonville
Norco

Subnets -
Dallas Offices
192.168.1.x ( Dallas-Corp )
192.168.2.x ( Plano )
192.168.3.x ( Coit )
192.168.4.x ( Farmers )
Houston Offices
192.168.5.x ( Eldridge )
192.168.6.x ( Clear Lake )
192.168.7.x ( Midtown )
Virginia Beach Office
192.168.8.x ( Virginia Beach )
Atlanta Office
192.168.9.x ( Atlanta )
Jacksonville Office
192.168.10.x ( Jacksonville )
Norco Office
192.168.11.x ( Norco )

How would you create site links for the scenario?

I will associate each subnet with the appropriate site.
The Dallas-corp office has two domain controllers. Each
of the offices will have 1 DC that is a GC and has AD
DNS.


Some other questions:
I After reading MS KB 306602(Section I) and MS KB 247811
I am still confused on how client authentication works
within sites.

Example: I have the Houston site which has 3DC's in it.
There are 3 subnets associated with that site. When a
client trys to authenticate will it first try to find a
DC on its local subnet? If it cannot find one on its
local subnet does it try one of the other DC's in that
site to authenticate against? Does it go to the next
closest site if know DC's are available in that site or
does it go back to the hub site in Dallas.

I am so confused. Please help this AD newbie.
.

Brian,

There is an Inland Empire Office in NORCO? WOW! I did
not think that there was too much going on out there! I
used to live in Los Angeles and actually played Baseball
out there in the CIF Playoffs a long time ago ( 1985 ).

Anyway, to get to your questions. Since you have only one
DC in most of your sites ( strongly push for a second DC
in each Site ) this may not be of much interest to you
right now but might have some purpose later on ( once you
get the second DC in each Site ). Please know that
INTRASITE replication is handled automatically. WIN2000
does a pretty great job of creating and dynamically
managing a replication schedule and replication links
between all DCs in a Site. When you add that second DC in
each Site then WIN2000 will take care of adding the
necessary links and managing it all by itself. Ain't this
stuff cool?!?

As you know, you have to create all INTERSITE Links. This
is where your question comes in. I will get to that in a
second. Let's take a look at a couple of things first.

You question about the Houston Site where you have three
DCs. Because you have Sites set up and configured
properly, your client PCs are *supposed* to authenticate
against a "local" DC ( with "local" being in that Site ).
However, it does not always happen that way. This is due
to Generic Records ( aka non site-specific records ) that
DCs from other Sites might "leave behind". Take a look at
the following MSKB Articles:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;306602&Product=win2000

There are also two MS KB Articles about how a WIN2000 and
a WINXP Clients locate a Domain Controller. I will need
to find those articles for you...

Here are a couple of MSKB Articles for you on how to
create Subnets and Sites ( sure that you can handle that
but just in case )....

How to create Subnets
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;269098&Product=win2000

How to configure Sites
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;318480&Product=win2000

Here are two MSKB Articles for you on how to create the
SITE LINKS ( for the INTERSITE replication ). I think
that these will help you with the main questions that you
had:

How to create and configure a Site Link
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;316812&Product=win2000

How to configure Site Link Replication
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;321253&Product=win2000

This should get you going in the right direction. If you
need any more help please let us know.

BTW, if you have any "legacy" clients - WIN9x or WINNT -
then you might want to consider installing the ADCLient on
them so that they are a bit more "AD-Aware". This will
allow them to be Site Aware.

HTH,

Cary

 

[Cary Shultz [MVP]]

-----Original Message-----
I need some help creating SITE Links. Thanks Cary for
all the helpful information you have been providing.

Here is what I have:

-Active Directory Sites and Services-

Sites - Dallas
Houston
Virginia Beach
Atlanta
Jacksonville
Norco

Subnets -
Dallas Offices
192.168.1.x ( Dallas-Corp )
192.168.2.x ( Plano )
192.168.3.x ( Coit )
192.168.4.x ( Farmers )
Houston Offices
192.168.5.x ( Eldridge )
192.168.6.x ( Clear Lake )
192.168.7.x ( Midtown )
Virginia Beach Office
192.168.8.x ( Virginia Beach )
Atlanta Office
192.168.9.x ( Atlanta )
Jacksonville Office
192.168.10.x ( Jacksonville )
Norco Office
192.168.11.x ( Norco )

How would you create site links for the scenario?

I will associate each subnet with the appropriate site.
The Dallas-corp office has two domain controllers. Each
of the offices will have 1 DC that is a GC and has AD
DNS.


Some other questions:
I After reading MS KB 306602(Section I) and MS KB 247811
I am still confused on how client authentication works
within sites.

Example: I have the Houston site which has 3DC's in it.
There are 3 subnets associated with that site. When a
client trys to authenticate will it first try to find a
DC on its local subnet? If it cannot find one on its
local subnet does it try one of the other DC's in that
site to authenticate against? Does it go to the next
closest site if know DC's are available in that site or
does it go back to the hub site in Dallas.

I am so confused. Please help this AD newbie.
.

Here are those two MSKB Articles for the WIN2000 and WINXP
Clients:

How WIN2000 Clients find a Domain Controller
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-
us;247811

How WINXP Clients find a Domain Controller
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;
[LN];314861

HTH,

Cary

 

[Brian]

Cary-

I understand how to go in and setup site links I am just
confused on how mine should be configured. For Example:

Should I create a site link between Dallas(hub site) and
all my other sites?

Site Name Linked Site Name of Link
Dallas Houston DAL-HOU
Houston Dallas HOU-DAL
Norco Dallas NOR-DAL
Virginia Beach Dallas VIR-DAL
Atlanta Dallas ATL-DAL
Jacksonville Dallas JAC-DAL

I am sure this is not correct but this is what I am
struggling with.

Send me an email and I will let you know who I work for.

Thanks,
Brian

-----Original Message-----

-----Original Message-----
I need some help creating SITE Links. Thanks Cary for
all the helpful information you have been providing.

Here is what I have:

-Active Directory Sites and Services-

Sites - Dallas
Houston
Virginia Beach
Atlanta
Jacksonville
Norco

Subnets -
Dallas Offices
192.168.1.x ( Dallas-Corp )
192.168.2.x ( Plano )
192.168.3.x ( Coit )
192.168.4.x ( Farmers )
Houston Offices
192.168.5.x ( Eldridge )
192.168.6.x ( Clear Lake )
192.168.7.x ( Midtown )
Virginia Beach Office
192.168.8.x ( Virginia Beach )
Atlanta Office
192.168.9.x ( Atlanta )
Jacksonville Office
192.168.10.x ( Jacksonville )
Norco Office
192.168.11.x ( Norco )

How would you create site links for the scenario?

I will associate each subnet with the appropriate site.
The Dallas-corp office has two domain controllers. Each
of the offices will have 1 DC that is a GC and has AD
DNS.


Some other questions:
I After reading MS KB 306602(Section I) and MS KB 247811
I am still confused on how client authentication works
within sites.

Example: I have the Houston site which has 3DC's in it.
There are 3 subnets associated with that site. When a
client trys to authenticate will it first try to find a
DC on its local subnet? If it cannot find one on its
local subnet does it try one of the other DC's in that
site to authenticate against? Does it go to the next
closest site if know DC's are available in that site or
does it go back to the hub site in Dallas.

I am so confused. Please help this AD newbie.
.

Here are those two MSKB Articles for the WIN2000 and WINXP
Clients:

How WIN2000 Clients find a Domain Controller
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-
us;247811

How WINXP Clients find a Domain Controller
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;
[LN];314861

HTH,

Cary
.