Inter-office roaming home and profile folders?

[Gordon Fecyk]

I'm about to rig a branch office's DC and I've been told that, through the
FRS service, each DC can have a copy of all users' directories, profiles,
and such. The branch office DC will connect to the main office through an
external VPN router.

I think I know how to set up replication (just move the folders to
SYSVOL\sysvol\[domain]) but how then do I tell a client machine to pick the
nearest server to fetch one's profile and home directory?

I know the login script supports %LOGONSERVER% if all the clients are Win2K
or better, but does that work for the Profile settings of the user? IE:

Profile Path: %LOGONSERVER%\profiles$\%USERNAME%
Home Directory:
Connect X: to %LOGONSERVER%\users$\%USERNAME%

FYI: I tend to use hidden shares for these things, hence the dollar signs.

Yeah, I could replicate the folders anyway, and manually change the account
settings when I know a user's moving, but I'm lazy.

 

[ptwilliams]

Providing your sites are setup properly and you've adequately placed your
GCs, machines will go to the local server first and only to a remote DC if
they cannot find the local one.

I don't recommend putting all that data in your SYSVOL folder. That'll
cause lots of replication traffic, and if there's shed loads of changes
could result in NTFS USN Journal Wraps.

DFS is how people go about replicating distributed data, but it's not
recommended for dynamic data. However, if we're just talking one DC per
site, then this could be 'do-able' (I don't think I'd do it). But I'd do
lots of testing first.




Paul.
_______________________________

I'm about to rig a branch office's DC and I've been told that, through the
FRS service, each DC can have a copy of all users' directories, profiles,
and such. The branch office DC will connect to the main office through an
external VPN router.

I think I know how to set up replication (just move the folders to
SYSVOL\sysvol\[domain]) but how then do I tell a client machine to pick the
nearest server to fetch one's profile and home directory?

I know the login script supports %LOGONSERVER% if all the clients are Win2K
or better, but does that work for the Profile settings of the user? IE:

Profile Path: %LOGONSERVER%\profiles$\%USERNAME%
Home Directory:
Connect X: to %LOGONSERVER%\users$\%USERNAME%

FYI: I tend to use hidden shares for these things, hence the dollar signs.

Yeah, I could replicate the folders anyway, and manually change the account
settings when I know a user's moving, but I'm lazy.

 

[Gordon Fecyk]

Providing your sites are setup properly and you've adequately placed your

GCs, machines will go to the local server first and only to a remote DC if
they cannot find the local one.

I understand that much - that's what the %logonserver% environment variable
tells you. Under NT4 I've ensured the stations pick the local server by
using "M" NetBIOS nodes (broadcast first) so they see the local domain
controller first.

I'm not as sure how to ensure this under Win2K, where the client machines
use DNS instead of NBT/WINS.

DFS is how people go about replicating distributed data, but it's not
recommended for dynamic data. However, if we're just talking one DC per
site, then this could be 'do-able' (I don't think I'd do it).

It's supposed to be one DC per site only, all part of the same domain. And
yeah, it's gonna be a lot of
bandwidth. I'm expecting it. Quick access to documents and inter-office
roaming is important to this client, though.

I just poked at this, an overview of DFS:

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812487>

So DFS lets me create a virtual server and I can point my Profile settings
to a DFS share instead of a regular share, like
"\\[domain-name]\dfsroot\users$\%username%" or similar. I take it that, as
long as the client station knows where the nearest DFS server is (which will
be the nearest DC) it'll look there first?

And ohh yes will there be lots of testing.... Fortunately I can test
with a branch office that's only a few blocks away from the main office.

Thanks for the pointer.

 

[ptwilliams]

"I'm not as sure how to ensure this under Win2K, where the client machines
use DNS instead of NBT/WINS."

That's what I'm saying -if your sites are configured properly your machine
will find the local DC through the SRV records in DNS. In your DNS are
records that say this DC is in this site, etc. Site-specific traffic is
localised; a machine at siteb will contact the DC at siteb providing DNS,
Sites, and GCs are configured and placed properly.


Paul.
__________________________________

Providing your sites are setup properly and you've adequately placed your
GCs, machines will go to the local server first and only to a remote DC if
they cannot find the local one.

I understand that much - that's what the %logonserver% environment variable
tells you. Under NT4 I've ensured the stations pick the local server by
using "M" NetBIOS nodes (broadcast first) so they see the local domain
controller first.

I'm not as sure how to ensure this under Win2K, where the client machines
use DNS instead of NBT/WINS.

DFS is how people go about replicating distributed data, but it's not
recommended for dynamic data. However, if we're just talking one DC per
site, then this could be 'do-able' (I don't think I'd do it).

It's supposed to be one DC per site only, all part of the same domain. And
yeah, it's gonna be a lot of
bandwidth. I'm expecting it. Quick access to documents and inter-office
roaming is important to this client, though.

I just poked at this, an overview of DFS:

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812487>

So DFS lets me create a virtual server and I can point my Profile settings
to a DFS share instead of a regular share, like
"\\[domain-name]\dfsroot\users$\%username%" or similar. I take it that, as
long as the client station knows where the nearest DFS server is (which will
be the nearest DC) it'll look there first?

And ohh yes will there be lots of testing.... Fortunately I can test
with a branch office that's only a few blocks away from the main office.

Thanks for the pointer.

 

[Gordon Fecyk]

That's what I'm saying -if your sites are configured properly your machine

will find the local DC through the SRV records in DNS.

So the stations will figure it out if DNS is available and the AD records
are visible and correct. OK, that's simple enough.

a machine at siteb will contact the DC at siteb providing DNS,
Sites, and GCs are configured and placed properly.

OK... I imagine once that's done, and I know it works correctly, I can
follow the steps here:

<http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/fileandprint/dfsstep
s.asp>

Only I'd have a DFS root:

\\example.com\dfsroot

....a bunch of things in it (DFS links?):

\\example.com\dfsroot\users$
\\example.com\dfsroot\w2kprof$
\\example.com\dfsroot\company

....and these would each have one replica, such as for users$:

\\sbsbox\users$ (Master) (at main office)
\\w2kbox\users$ (example branch office)

....and a user could connect to \\example.com\dfsroot\users$\%username% and
get whichever server's closest? (Provided AD's working right and DNS records
are correct)