I got the DFS Blues!

ryan.chapman · 05-06-2008, 10:03 AM

Hey everyone! I am new to this forum and I thought that maybe someone can help me out with a big DFS issue that I am having. I am going to try to explain this clearly so just bear with me on this...

I am a Systems Administrator for a large call center that has over 30 sites all across the USA. My issue is that some of our sites are experiencing really slow start menu loads and I am trying to fix that. We have GPOs configured for start menu redirections that point to a DFS share. The DFS share is configured to be stored on all of the site's local DC.

I believe what is happening is that for the center that I work at, the start menus are trying to be loaded from a different DFS share other than our local DC. So that is why it's taken forever to load! I also found out something really interesting. Let's say that the DFS share is \\contoso.org\dfs\

If I pinged contoso.org I don't get the local DC's IP address. I get another site's DC IP address. If I wait a few more minutes, I ping contoso.org again and I get a completely different DC IP address again! It's like contoso.org is jumping from one DC to another DC and never pointing to our local DC at all. Could my theory be correct?

I really want to think there is something up with our DFS share. I want to make sure that our start menu's are being pulled from the DFS share from our local DC first and if our DC goes down, it will pull the share from other site.

All computers are using Windows XP Pro and our local server is Windows 2K3 RC1 I believe. If you have any ideas or theories, please let me know. I want to be the local hero! Thanks again!

XtabbedoutX · 05-06-2008, 05:54 PM

This sounds more like a DNS issue. Calling the DFS share by the name resolves from the DNS. Instead of having it call by name try having it call by the local IP address. Are all 30 locations running on the same domain? I assume each location has it's own server setup.

ryan.chapman · 05-07-2008, 10:29 AM

Yes all the sites are under the same domain name and all sites have it's own local DC connected to the domain. What I could try to do is under the Start Menu redirection GPO settings, I could configure the path via IP. So for example \\10.X.X.X\dfs\startmenus.

You think maybe that would work? However, what if our local DC crashes? Then would the start menus not pull? Because it's trying to pull the start menus from our local DC?

XtabbedoutX · 05-07-2008, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan.chapman

Yes all the sites are under the same domain name and all sites have it's own local DC connected to the domain. What I could try to do is under the Start Menu redirection GPO settings, I could configure the path via IP. So for example \\10.X.X.X\dfs\startmenus.

That's what I was saying. But as you stated below the Menus would not load if the local crashes.

Quote:

You think maybe that would work? However, what if our local DC crashes? Then would the start menus not pull? Because it's trying to pull the start menus from our local DC?

You could reprogram the GPO by IP as a temporary until you can figure out why it keeps looking all over the domain for the menus. Like I said it sounds as if something is up with the Global DNS for the domain.

05-06-2008, 10:03 AM	#1 (permalink)
ryan.chapman Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP	I got the DFS Blues! Hey everyone! I am new to this forum and I thought that maybe someone can help me out with a big DFS issue that I am having. I am going to try to explain this clearly so just bear with me on this... I am a Systems Administrator for a large call center that has over 30 sites all across the USA. My issue is that some of our sites are experiencing really slow start menu loads and I am trying to fix that. We have GPOs configured for start menu redirections that point to a DFS share. The DFS share is configured to be stored on all of the site's local DC. I believe what is happening is that for the center that I work at, the start menus are trying to be loaded from a different DFS share other than our local DC. So that is why it's taken forever to load! I also found out something really interesting. Let's say that the DFS share is \\contoso.org\dfs\ If I pinged contoso.org I don't get the local DC's IP address. I get another site's DC IP address. If I wait a few more minutes, I ping contoso.org again and I get a completely different DC IP address again! It's like contoso.org is jumping from one DC to another DC and never pointing to our local DC at all. Could my theory be correct? I really want to think there is something up with our DFS share. I want to make sure that our start menu's are being pulled from the DFS share from our local DC first and if our DC goes down, it will pull the share from other site. All computers are using Windows XP Pro and our local server is Windows 2K3 RC1 I believe. If you have any ideas or theories, please let me know. I want to be the local hero! Thanks again!

05-06-2008, 05:54 PM	#2 (permalink)
XtabbedoutX Tech, Microsoft Support Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Oklahoma City Posts: 836 OS: Server 2K3 R2, Server 2K, XP PRO, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Ubuntu Linux 7.10, iPhone My System	Re: I got the DFS Blues! This sounds more like a DNS issue. Calling the DFS share by the name resolves from the DNS. Instead of having it call by name try having it call by the local IP address. Are all 30 locations running on the same domain? I assume each location has it's own server setup. __________________ HJT - 5 steps against malware. Post your HijackThis log there and not here ! Posting system specs

05-07-2008, 10:29 AM	#3 (permalink)
ryan.chapman Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP	Re: I got the DFS Blues! Yes all the sites are under the same domain name and all sites have it's own local DC connected to the domain. What I could try to do is under the Start Menu redirection GPO settings, I could configure the path via IP. So for example \\10.X.X.X\dfs\startmenus. You think maybe that would work? However, what if our local DC crashes? Then would the start menus not pull? Because it's trying to pull the start menus from our local DC?