IT Manager Webcast: Deep Dive into Windows Server 2008 File Services (Level 300)
Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:30 AM Pacific Time
The Windows Server 2008 operating system contains many changes to core file services components that dramatically increase availability, scalability, and performance. This webcast will provide an overview of the changes in Distributed File System (DFS), Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), and storage management in Windows Server 2008.
Brandon M. Baker
When we shipped Windows Server 2003 R2, many customers requested a way to enable and disable referrals for a link target using command line. Neither dfscmd.exe nor dfsutil.exe back then provided a way to do this.
In response to those requests, Dan Lovinger published Modlink, command-line method to enable and disable referrals for a link target. Until today, we provided the source code for Modlink in the blog. But compiling the code can be a hassle, so in order to make it available for more people, we opened our first SSD open code project in Codeplex. Now you can download Modlink compiled!
Modlink Open Source project page: http://codeplex.com/modlink
Download Modlink binaries here: http://www.codeplex.com/modlink/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx
And source code here: http://www.codeplex.com/modlink/SourceControl/ListDownloadableCommits.aspx
Windows Server 2008 users, please note:
Due to many requests, feedback and user adoption we had for Modlink, the DFS Namespaces team decided to make Modlink functionality in-box for Windows Server 2008. So, if you are a Server 2008 administrator, you don’t need Modlink anymore.
To enable and disable referrals using DFSUtil in Windows Server 2008, from an elevated command prompt, use
dfsutil property state <DfsPath> [<\\server\share>]
------ STATE Commands Supported ------
Online Set state of folder or folder target to Online.
Offline Set state of folder or folder target to Offline.
Example:
> DFSUtil property state offline \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace\Link \\Server\Share
We hope that helps some people! And don’t forget to keep sending us your feedback.
--Malu and John
1. New Command Line Interface (CLI)
DFSUtil.exe in Windows Server 2008 comes with a new CLI, which is based on Keywords, Required Parameters and Optional parameters instead of Switches and Arguments. With this change, we intend to make the usage of the commands clearer and easier.
Navigation through Keywords is more friendly, giving the information needed to execute a task.
An example of this:
To create the new Domain-Based Namespace Projects which is going to have a Root Target at the Server NewYork, with the old CLI the user had to type
DFSUtil.exe /AddFtRoot /Server:\\NewYork /Share:Projects /Comment:”Projects in New York”
With the new CLI
DFSUtil.exe Root AddDom \\NewYork\Projects “Projects in New York”
The new CLI not only gives the necessary information for the task to be executed, but display hints to help resolve tasks related as in when you are creating a namespace you would like to add root targets to it.
2. New features in DFSUtil.exe
Creation of Windows 2008 mode Domain-based namespaces.
DFSUtil.exe Root AddDom \\Server\Share <Version> <Comment>
For Version you can choose:
V1: Windows 2000, Windows 2003 mode namespace.
V2: Windows 2008 mode namespace.
DFSUtil.exe Root AddDom \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace “This is a V2 Namespace!!”
Add and remove Links
DFSUtil.exe Link Add <DFSPath> \\Server\Share [Restore] <Comment>
DFSUtil.exe Link Remove <DFSPath>
DFSUtil.exe Link Add \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace\Link \\Server\Share “This a new link”
Display and/or change the state of Roots and Links
DFSUtil.exe Property State <DFSPath> \\Server\Share
State commands:
Online: Set state of link or link target to Online
Offline: Set state of link or link target to Offline
DFSUtil.exe Property State \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace\Link
DFSUtil.exe Property State Online \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace\Link
Display and/or change TTL
DFSUtil.exe Property TTL <DFSPath>
TTL commands:
Set: Set the Timeout value of a DFS namespace or DFS link.
DFSUtil.exe Property TTL Set <DFSPath> <Value in ms>
DFSUtil.exe Property TTL Set \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace 3000
Resolve DFS path to a destination UNC path
DFSUtil.exe ViewDFSPath <DFSPath>
DFSUtil.exe ViewDFSPath \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace
Display and/or Set Registry Configuration Parameters in Server and Clients
For Server
DFSUtil.exe Server Registry
Registry commands:
DFSDNSConfig: Set/Reset/View DFSDNSConfig key
LDAPTimeoutValue: Set/Reset/View LDAPTimeoutValueInSeconds key
SyncInterval: Set/Reset/View SyncIntervalinSeconds key
SiteCostedReferrals: Set/Reset/View SiteCostedReferrals key.
InsiteReferrals: Set/Reset/View InsiteReferrals key.
PreferLogonDC: Set/Reset/View PreferLogonDC key
For Client:
DFSUtil.exe Client Registry
Registry commands:
ProviderCacheTimeout: Set/View the ProviderCacheTimeoutInMinutes key.
DFSDCNameDelay: Set/Reset/View the DFSDCNameDelay key.
Enable/Disable Access Based Directory Enumeration (ABDE) in the Domain-based/Standalone namespace.
DFSUtil.exe Property ABDE<DFSPath>
DFSUtil.exe Property ABDE \\contoso.com\DomainNamespace
Manage Security attributes on DFS Links
DFSUtil.exe Property ACL <DFSPath>
ACL commands:
Grant: Grant permissions for a user or group.
Deny: Deny permissions for a user or group.
Revoke: Revoke granted permissions for a user or group.
Set: Set Security Information on the folder from SDDL input
Reset: Remove the Security Descriptor associated with the link.
Control: Set Security control information on the link.
John Angel Diaz
Dilip Naik, File Systems and Storage MVP, just released 3 new white papers:
enjoy the reading,
--Malu Menezes
-- As published in The Storage Blog at Microsoft
Four times per year, each and every product within Microsoft awards the title of “Most Valuable Professional” (MVP) to outside folks who have a passion for those products and technologies within their communities. Some started asking questions in the newsgroups, and now, years later spend more time answering questions for others than asking their own. Others run user groups or evangelize Microsoft technologies along with their own. Often, they are also actively involved in our beta programs to find the things we need to fix before release. And many are services oriented folks who have developed so much expertise that the product groups might even ask them for assistance. :-)
But for whatever their involvement, they have chosen to invest part of their passions in various Microsoft products and their communities of users – so Microsoft recognizes them as “MVP’s” for one year as thanks for all that they’ve done. There are some cool perks (some of which we can’t share here), not the least of which is an even stronger and direct bridge from these passionate folks outside of Microsoft to the passionate engineering and product management folks in Microsoft that share their passion.
As the various storage solutions from Microsoft continue to grow, we’ve seen some significant growth in our communities – across file systems, storage technologies and data protection. So, we are very excited to announce are largest crop of MVP awardees date – with 9 new MVPs plus one annual renewal who continues year-after-year to add value to our products and the storage community.
Announcing the Storage MVP awardees for July 2008:
David Chernicoff
David Chernicoff is a technology consultant with a focus on the mid-market space; Windows IT Pro Magazine Senior Contributing Editor; founding Technical Director for PC Week Labs (now eWeek); former Lab Director for Windows NT/Windows 2000 Magazine (now Windows IT Pro); and formerly Chief Technology Officer for a network management tools ISV.
David has been writing computer-related feature and product reviews for more than 20 years and is the author of more than a dozen eBooks and a contributor or co-author to an equal number of printed books.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find David Chernicoff: Windows IT Pro
Stephen Foskett
Stephen Foskett has provided vendor-independent end user consulting on storage topics for over 10 years, including work managing and delivering consulting services at Contoural, GlassHouse Technologies, StorageNetworks, and Sprint Paranet. He has been a storage columnist and has authored numerous articles for industry publications, and is a popular presenter at industry events.
As the director of Contoural's data practice, Foskett oversees the group that provides strategic consulting to assist Fortune 500 companies in aligning their storage and computing infrastructures with their business objectives. He holds a bachelor of science in Society/Technology Studies, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Steven Foskett: Search Storage, Conferences and Seminars.
Joachim Nässlander
Joachim Nässlander is a very active Forum answerer and became a Moderator during the Windows Server 2008 beta stages. He is also constant presence in Microsoft events: Microsoft TechNet Live, Microsoft TechNet Update, Ask the Experts, Longhorn tour, among many others. He also authors a column for Microsoft TechNet in Sweden, and presents IT Pro webcasts.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Joachim Nässlander: Technet Forums, Blogs, Technet Extended Expert, Conferences, Events and Roadshows.
Vincent Pang
Vincent is an active answerer in the Data Protection Manager newsgroups. He participates in events such as System Center booth at TechEd, helping customers to better understand Microsoft products and Data Protection Manager. He delivered more than 30 trainings on System Center products. Vincent Pang also participated in Data Protection Manager 2006 and 2007 betas, providing valuable feedback that helped the DPM team to improve the product.
Competency: Data Protection Manager
Where you can find Vincent Pang: Microsoft Newsgroups, Conferences, Presentations and Events
Brien M. Posey
Brien Posey is a freelance technical writer who writes regular columns for CNET, TechTarget, and MSD2D. He has also written for Windows magazine, ZDNET, Smart Computing, Windows Networking, and many others. He has published over 3,000 technical articles and written or contributed material to 27 books. He also serves the IT community through his own Web.
Prior to being a freelance author, Brien served as CIO for a chain of hospitals. He was also previously in charge of IT security for Fort Knox.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Brien M. Posey: Brien Posey Website, Windows Networking, Tech Republic, and others
Lutfie Royan
Luftie is one of the most active community contributors in Indonesia. He is an avid writer, speaker and user group participant.
Lutfie actively introduces Windows Server latest technologies to community, especially Windows Server Storage, Powershell and Deploying file system. Currently, he is involved in learning about the next generation of Windows Server- Windows Server 2008 and is very interested to know-in depth about Windows Server 2008 Core and Powershell.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Lutfie Royan: Blogs, Conferences and Seminars.
Derek Schauland
Derek is a network administrator for a specialty malting company in Wisconsin. He is a regular writer for TechRepublic.com and help out the IT community at Experts-Exchange.com. He contributed with a very interesting series of articles about Windows Storage Server.
Derek, Jill and Scott from the Storage Server team say hello :)
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Derek Schauland: Tech Republic, ZDNet, Experts Exchange
András Székács
András is an active trainer, consultant, speaker and technical writer based in Hungary. He is teaches HP Proliant, Storage and Itegrity courses in the TrainerC education centre, and Microsoft MOC courses in Szamalk CPLS, the largest IT training institute in Hungary.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find András Székács: TechNet Hungary, Events and Roadshows
Ted Vahey
Ted was a referral from Storage MVP Dan Stolts, and we were amazed to find more about his contribution. President of the Boston Area Windows Server User Group, he helped deliver more than 28 presentations about Windows technologies in 2008.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Ted Vahey: Boston Area Windows Server User Group
Reawarding…
Markus Sprungk
Markus Sprungk is a long time Storage MVP, and was awarded again in July. He is well-known in the community as an expert in Windows Server related topics, and one of the leaders on newsgroups: alt.pl.comp.os.windowsxp; alt.pl.comp.os.windowsvista; pl.comp.pecet; pl.comp.nowe-programy; ms-news.pl.windowsxp.
Competency: File Systems and Storage
Where you can find Markus Sprungk: PCLab, Microsoft Newsgroups
To all of the awardees, as well as the existing Storage MVP’s, we are looking forward to working closer with you than ever before – with some great stuff in beta and in the roadmap, and a lot of expert level folks that want to help you do what you do for our storage communities.
Resources:
See all current Storage MVPs.
Visit the MVP award website.
--Malu and Jason
In a previous blog post, Jose Barreto covered the storage options for Hyper-V and described the many choices between directly attached or SAN storage, fibre channel or iSCSI, passthrough or VHD, Virtual SCSI or Virtual IDE, etc.
If you missed that one, check it out at
http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/02/14/storage-options-for-windows-server-2008-s-hyper-v.aspx
However, he didn't mention at that time the option to store your VHD and ISO files in a CIFS/SMB file server share.
Now he outlines how to use this additional storage option for Hyper-V with step-by-step instructions, a few screenshots and some performance tips.
Check all the details at http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/06/24/storing-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-files-on-an-cifs-smb-file-share.aspx
DFS Namespaces or DFSN management command line tools are available on Windows Server 2008 and also on Windows Vista SP1 as part of the Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). The three available tools are Dfsutil.exe, Dfscmd.exe and Dfsdiag.exe. In this posting I will show some exploratory uses of the Dfsutil tool.
If you are working on a Windows Server 2008 system you have Dfsutil already available. On a Windows vista SP1 system you need to install the RSAT pack. To install the RSAT pack you can refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941314 for simple installation guidelines. Once Dfsutil is installed we can start doing some simple experiments. First let's have a look at the help:
Dfsutil /?
This is the best way to start exploring the tool. The help shows you the nine main commands Dfsutil offers:
The commands are organized in a tree like structure. So if you issue Dfsutil cache the result is:
Then you can select one of the three cache commands. If you pick Referral, for instance, the full command line will be Dfsutil cache referral. This is the new Dfsutil interface. Dfsutil also supports the old interface. You can obtain the help for the old interface by doing Dfsutil /oldcli.
With Dfsutil you can create/modify/remove DFS namespaces roots and links, add/remove targets, modify/view site costing properties, modify/view DFS registry keys, etc. It's a powerful tool! But let's start with something simple. How about listing all the namespaces in a domain? For that use the Domain command:
Dfsutil domain DomainName
That will give you the list of namespaces roots for the domain DomainName. You can use the FQDN if you prefer. Also, you can list the namespaces roots hosted on a specific machine by doing:
Dfsutil server MachineName
MachineName is the root server. This command lists domain and standalone namespaces hosted in the root server. The root server can be a remote machine. Now to look at the individual namespaces, you can do:
Dfsutil root \\DomainName or MachineName\RootName
Here's an example:
Alright, so we have the standalone root myroot on the root server 432233e0630-79. By using Dfsutil root, we can see that this root has a link called link0 and the target for this link is the share dlink0. Doing net share dlink0 you find the directory the link \\432233e0630-79\myroot\link0 points to.
Using Dfsutil and these few commands you can map all namespaces in your domain.
Hope this helped you get started with Dfsutil.
More info:
Technet documentation: Dfsutil Overview
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Marcello Hasegawa
Our Storage colleague Jacob Buis just launched the blog "Various Thoughts About Software Testing".
If you are curious about how we test software at Microsoft, what are the pros and cons of Software Testing Automation, and discussion about testing techniques, stay tuned.
http://blogs.technet.com/Various_Thoughts_About_Software_testing/
--Malu Menezes
1. In "Overview of Actual File Restoration" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384575.aspx ), the table of requester actions has been updated to remove the call to SetBackupSucceeded and add a call to GetWriterComponents.
2. In "Using VSS Automated System Recovery for Disaster Recovery" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384630.aspx ), the registry key descriptions were revised to make them clearer.
3. In the IVssComponent::AddDifferencedFilesByLastModifyTime reference page (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383462.aspx ), an introductory sentence was added to the Remarks section.
4. A new topic, "Backing Up and Restoring an FRS-Replicated SYSVOL Folder" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc507518.aspx ), was added.
5. In the following method reference topics, the size parameter descriptions now specify that they are in bytes:
a. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt::ChangeDiffAreaMaximumSize (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383980.aspx )
b. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt::AddDiffArea (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383973.aspx )
c. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt2::ChangeDiffAreaMaximumSizeEx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383939.aspx )
d. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt::QueryVolumesSupportedForDiffAreas (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384010.aspx )
e. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt::QueryDiffAreasForSnapshot (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383984.aspx )
f. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt::QueryDiffAreasForVolume (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383992.aspx )
g. IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt::QueryDiffAreasOnVolume (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383995.aspx )
6. In the glossary definition for "auto-recovered shadow copy" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384651.aspx ), this sentence was deleted: "An auto-recovered shadow copy cannot be transportable."
7. In "What's New in VSS in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb972758.aspx ), the name of the Network Policy Service VSS writer was changed so that it is now correct.
- Diane
The previous post referred to some basic backup/restore jargon. Now, let us investigate what the footprint of the DFS Replication service looks like. The following steps have been performed on a server running Windows Server 2008.
Locate working directories used by the DFS Replication service
To start with, let's configure a replicated folder on a freshly installed Windows Server 2008 machine. Using the DFS Management Console (dfsmgmt.msc), we configure a folder ‘D:\Reports’ to be replicated between two machines. For now, this is an empty directory and contains no data to be replicated between the servers.
On navigating to the folder ‘D:\Reports’ we notice it is empty. Or is it really? After enabling the option ‘Show hidden files, folders and drives’ and disabling the option ‘Hide protected operating system files’ in Windows Explorer, a hidden folder called 'DfsrPrivate' appears within the replicated folder.
This folder is in reality a junction point or, in simpler terms, a link to another location on the volume. Typing ‘dir /a’ on the command prompt shows us where this junction point leads to. It seems to point to a path under the ‘System Volume Information’ folder on the same volume (‘D:\’). In case of Windows Server 2003 R2, there is no junction point. ‘DfsrPrivate’ is actually a folder on Windows Server 2003 R2 and the following sequence of operations can be performed on that platform as well in order to view the contents of the folder.
Now that we’ve enabled the display of hidden and system files, we can navigate to the root of the volume in Windows Explorer and see the ‘System Volume Information’ folder. However, this directory is ACL-ed to prevent access by anyone except the System. Therefore, any attempt to access the directory results in an Access Denied message. To get around this, let's add Read permissions for ‘Administrator’ to the folder. We’re now able to traverse the ‘System Volume Information’ folder. Be careful to restore the permissions once you’re done with the following steps.
Inspect the contents of ‘System Volume Information\DFSR’
The ‘System Volume Information’ folder contains the following directories:
- Config – This directory contains a cache of the configuration information that was retrieved by the DFS Replication service when it polled Active Directory. The configuration files stored here are in XML format and they reflect the replication group and replicated folder configuration currently setup in Active Directory using the DFS Management snap-in.
- Private – This directory contains some private folders used by the DFS Replication service. We’ll get to this in a bit.
- Database_* - This directory contains the jet database used by the DFS Replication service to store file version information and other metadata that is maintained on a per replicated folder basis.
Let's descend one level further into the ‘Private’ directory. There’s a directory with a name that looks like a GUID. You’ve probably already noticed that this is the same directory that is pointed to by the junction point ‘DfsrPrivate’. This location can thus also be accessed via the path ‘D:\Reports\DfsrPrivate’.
This GUID-named directory contains the following sub-directories:
- ConflictAndDeleted – The DFS Replication service is a multi-master replication engine with last writer wins conflict resolution semantics. All versions of files which lose conflicts are put into this directory.
- Deleted – This directory is used to store any files that the DFS Replication service needs to delete.
- Installing – This directory is used to assemble updates to files that have been replicated in from other replication partners. Once the entire file is assembled, the copy of the file in the replicated folder is updated.
- Staging – This directory contains the staging area used by the DFS Replication service. The staging area is used to compute RDC signatures and compress file data before replicating with other replication partners.
If more replicated folders are added on the same volume, there will be corresponding GUID-named folders within ‘D:\System Volume Information\DFSR\Private’. Also, each of those replicated folders will have a junction point called ‘DfsrPrivate’ which will point to these respective GUID-named folders.
After adding another replicated folder ‘D:\Data’ on the same volume, let us observe what has changed. Notice another GUID-named folder has been created under ‘D:\System Volume Information\DFSR\Private’. This folder corresponds to the newly added replicated folder (‘D:\Data’) and is pointed to by a junction point within that replicated folder (‘D:\Data\DfsrPrivate’). Also notice that each replicated folder has its own 'Staging' area, 'Conflict And Deleted' folder etc. all located within its own unique GUID-named directory.
However, it is important to note that after adding the second replicated folder, a new database directory was not created. This is because all folders on a given volume share the same database. Thus, the DFS Replication service’s database is on a per-volume basis and is shared by all replicated folders hosted on that volume.
Now that we’re done with our investigation, remember to remove the Read permission for Administrator from the ‘System Volume Information’ folder.
See Also
Part 1 - Introduction
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Mahesh Unnikrishnan
Hi, All!
Jose Barreto just posted an article describing different ways to implement Windows Server Failover Clustering with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
The scenarios described include:
1 - Parent-based Failover Clustering with two physical servers
2 - Child-based Failover Clustering with two physical servers
3 - Mixed Physical/Virtual Failover Clustering
4 - Failover Clustering with two child partitions on one physical server
5 - Standalone demo laptop with Virtual iSCSI SAN
Check the details on each one (including a "before" and "after" diagram for each) at
http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/06/17/windows-server-2008-hyper-v-failover-clustering-options.aspx
--Malu Menezes
Backing up data is never a bad idea since it can provide handy insurance against accidental data loss. The DFS Replication service is designed to interoperate with the backup/restore interfaces exposed by the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). This facilitates consistent backup and restore operations on replicated data.
This series of blog posts explore how backups can be taken of replicated data and the manner in which data can be restored. This first article explains a few backup/restore specific terms that will be used frequently in the following articles in the series.
System State Backup (Critical Volumes Backup)
System state includes more data on Windows Server 2008 than in the Windows Server 2003 operating system. In Windows Server 2008, the system components which contribute to system state may depend on the configuration of the computer. System state data includes at least the following and may include additional data that is configuration dependent:
- Registry.
- COM+ class registration database.
- Boot files, including system files.
- Certificate Services database.
- Active Directory Domain Services.
- SYSVOL directory.
- Cluster Service information.
- Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) meta-directory.
- System files that are under Windows File Protection (WFP).
System state cannot be backed up separately – critical volumes (volumes storing system components including NTDS.dit, SYSVOL and %windir%) can be backed up. On domain controllers which are using the DFS Replication service for SYSVOL replication (i.e. Windows Server 2008 domain functional level), the DFS Replication service co-operates with Windows Server Backup in order to backup the SYSVOL folder.
The non-authoritative restore process is performed in the Windows Recovery Environment, which operates from the Microsoft Windows Pre-installation Environment (Windows PE). This environment can be accessed from the Windows Server 2008 setup media. System State Backups can be taken using Windows Backup by selecting all critical volumes on the server. This method can be used to backup a domain controller that uses DFS Replication for replicating the contents of the SYSVOL share.
It is recommended to take scheduled backups onto a volume that is hosted on a different hard disk. However, manual backups can be made to a volume on the same hard disk, as long as that destination volume is not included in the backup. Scheduled backup reformats the destination volume and therefore a dedicated backup volume is recommended. Manual backups, on the other hand, do not reformat the destination volume. Windows Server Backup also supports the usage of DVDs as backup media.
Full Server Backup
A full server backup is a backup of every volume on the server. For instance, this type of backup can be used to recover a server onto new hardware.
Authoritative Restore
By authoritatively restoring the contents of a replicated folder, you are specifying that the copy of the data that is restored from the backup is authoritative for the replication group. After the restore operation replaces data from the backup in the replicated folder, the DFS Replication service marks the restored data as authoritative and it is replicated to the other member servers in that replication group.
An authoritative restore of replicated data is performed when recovering from a situation where human error is involved and the error has replicated to other member servers in the replication group. For example, you might perform an authoritative restore if an administrator has accidentally deleted some files/folders that reside in the replicated folder.
Non-authoritative Restore
When you non-authoritatively restore the contents of a replicated folder, the local copy of data on the restored replication member server is compared with that of its replication partners. Any necessary changes are then replicated in, thus bringing the local data up-to-date with the other replication partners in the replication group.
Perform a non-authoritative restore if at least one other functioning replication member server exists in the replication group. This is the default method for restoring data in the replicated folder and occurs if the DFS Replication service is not explicitly instructed to perform an authoritative restore.
Installing Windows Server Backup
One of the tools that can be used to perform a backup/restore operation of DFSR replicated data on Windows Server 2008 is Windows Server Backup. Windows Server Backup is an optional component which can be installed from the Server Manager.
- Launch ‘Server Manager’.
- From the ‘Features Summary’ page select and launch the ‘Add Features’ wizard.
- The ‘Add Features’ wizard contains a list of optional features which may selected for installation on the server. Navigate to the entry corresponding to ‘Windows Server Backup Features’ and select it.
- Expand the selection and choose ‘Command-line Tools’ as well in case you would prefer using the command line tools which ship with Windows Server Backup for performing backups.
- Select 'Next' on the wizard and continue to follow the installation steps displayed by the wizard in order to complete installation of the Windows Server Backup feature.
See Also
Part 2 - Inspecting DFSR's Footprint
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Mahesh Unnikrishnan
Hello,
Below you have a list of KB articles for Windows Server 2008 released or updated this May.
|
949429 |
05/27/2008 |
The virtual IP address of a Windows Server 2008 NLB cluster is bound to the NetBIOS host name of a particular server or of multiple servers |
|
952247 |
05/27/2008 |
The Cluster network name resource and the File Share Witness resource may not come online on a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster node if a disjointed namespace is configured |
|
949822 |
05/19/2008 |
You cannot confirm or cancel the changes in the "Add Target" dialog box in LUN Management because the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons are missing on a computer that is running the Russian version of Windows Server 2008 |
|
949824 |
05/15/2008 |
The "Current Directory" label and the input text box are missing in the "Clusters" dialog box in some language versions of Windows Server 2008 |
|
948572 |
05/20/2008 |
A handle leak occurs in a Server Message Block (SMB) session between two Windows Vista-based computers or between two Windows Server 2008-based computers |
|
951590 |
05/14/2008 |
Multipath I/O disks may disappear after you use the Hot Add Processor feature to add a new CPU to a Windows Server 2008-based computer |
|
951434 |
05/14/2008 |
Support WebCast: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering on Windows Server 2008 |
|
951793 |
05/13/2008 |
VSS warning events are logged for non-LUN identifiers in the inquiry VPD page 0x83 data in Windows Server 2008 |
|
950876 |
05/12/2008 |
Group Policy settings are not applied on member computers that are running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1 when certain SMB signing policies are enabled |
|
951985 |
05/06/2008 |
How to set up dynamic boot partition mirroring on GUID partition table (GPT) disks in Windows Server 2008 |
|
951088 |
05/07/2008 |
Error message when you use SMB-to-NFS gateway software that exposes mounted NFS shared folders as SMB shared folders on a Windows Server 2008-based computer: "Stop 0x0000007E" |
|
951049 |
05/06/2008 |
Folder redirection does not work correctly after you restart a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista |
|
950181 |
05/07/2008 |
When you stop a node in a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster, the groups that are hosted on that node may fail over to a random node instead of to the next available node |
--Malu Menezes
Keith Combs just released a screencast about one of our team’s technologies:
Windows Vista Complete PC Backup and Restore Screencast
Windows Vista Complete PC backup is an utility that allows you to create a snapshot of your entire system and save it to a USB drive, DVD or external disk. In case your system crashes, you can restore it completely to that previous point in time – system, applications, fonts, files, emails, etc. You can think of Complete PC Backup as a permanent restoration point for your system and files.