How to configure DFS on Windows Server 2012 R2 (Explained)

hello friends this is Nick from Adobe solutions and today I'm going to show you the fun topic of configuring DFS on Windows Server 2012 r2 I'm going to start the video by presenting a new hard disk to my virtual servers currently I have two virtual servers DFS r01 and DFS r02 I'm going to use these virtual servers to store user data on them and to replicate the data so I'm going to show you how you can configure a new partition that is dedicated for user data and after that we are going to proceed with installing the DFS namespace and DFS replication roles on both servers and I'm going to show you the quick overview of the DFS management console and I'm going to start by configuring home folders DFS namespace so I'm going to use the home folders idea to show you how you can help your users to have better storage solution for their files and folders and important information so instead of storing everything locally on every single computer they can use the home folders share to store their data and we're going to look into the DFS root links and the type of the DFS namespace we have to choose from domain based or standalone so I'm going to choose the main base as currently my environment has a domain after that I'm going to configure the share permissions for the namespace and I'm going to create two home folder two home folders for Tom and Anna who are going to be my colleagues after creating the folders for Tom and Anna I'm going to configure the home folder structure on my user data partition and I'm going to configure the permissions so that every single share folder has unique permissions and users cannot browse to to other users data and after we are done with the namespace I'm going to configure a DFS replication between my two servers I'm going to specify the members DFS are 0 1 and 0 2 I'm going to specify the DFS replication topology and specify the bandwidth and schedule so I can for example I can specify that during the day my replication will use on the half of my bandwidth and during the out of hours it can use the full capacity of the bandwidth and at the end we are going to speak about the staging quota and toad considerations and what issues could that make to your replication at the end I'm going to use my windows 10 machine to map the home folder for Anna and we'll show you how the DFS namespace for home folders work so sit back and enjoy the demonstration first I'm going to log into my DFS server 0 1 I'm going to use the NLB admin account the server manager dashboard will load at the same time while this is loading I'm going to log into my second DFS server commit to it and what I did here is I've already renamed the server so it can be a part of my naming convention I've joined that server to the domain I've assigned the server with static IP address which corresponds to my network addresses the same is with the second DFS server I've renamed that to NLB - DFS r02 I've joined that to the domain I've assigned a static IP address for that server and one common thing thing that I did on both server a servers is I've turned off the domain firewall so that the server's can communicate without any issues and without any packages being blocked so I'm going to start with DFS one what we need to do because I don't want my DFS shared drives and namespaces to be on the C Drive where the operating system is and this is pretty mandatory thing if you want to build a production environment and if you want that to be are as Microsoft recommend and as all the IT professionals recommend try to separate all of the documents and files and programs away from the operating system partition so I'm going to leave that local C partition to the operating system only and I'm going to create another partition that I'm going to use to share my folders and drives so what I did here is I've attached another disk to my virtual machines and this is a 20 gig disk you can see that currently disc 1 is unknown and offline so what we need to do first is we need to bring that disc online it's not initialized but we can initialize the disk after that and you need to use the Master Boot at GPT partition table is the newer method but we are going to stick with Master Boot and click ok so it's now a basic online disk but still the space is unallocated so we cannot store anything there and what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a new simple volume and to use all the space for that volume and we'll name that volume for example a so click Next the file system would be NTFS because we want that the other options are the fat32 which is the other version of the partitioning method which does not provide us the right to use NTFS permissions and there is not enough security with that so you don't need it and the our EFS is the new partitioning method that is provided by Microsoft you can read more on TechNet about it I'm going to stick with NTFS for now the allocation unit will be the default one and the label or would be for example shared or only data data is fine we are going to perform a quick format and click Next we are going to finalize the settings it's going to format the disk that would appear here I'll click cancel because our already formatted the disk and now we have our healthy new data partition I'm going to do the same for the second server so I'm going to pause the video and I'm going to proceed with my next steps of configuring DFS next now that I have data ie disk partition created on both my servers the DFS r02 and the FS are 0 1 I'm going to continue with installing the gives our roles on my vault servers here you can see that under all servers I went ahead and added the two servers so I can control them and I can install the features only using only one server I'm going to start with the FS 0 1 it's a role based feature and here you can specify which server you want to install the role 1 I'm going to choose the first one and under file and storage services and then file and I scuzzy services you will see the DFS name spaces and DFS replication we need to select those it will automatically add the DFS management tools and other additional features DFS replication as well I'm going to click Next once again next the confirmation you will see what it will install and I can click install to that ok at the same time I will try to do the same for the second server role-based second one can file storage services and then go to namespaces add the features DFS replication click Next Next in install so now at the same time you can see how easy it is to install multiple servers from a single location just add them here and you can control basically most of the things with the servers so until this is done I'm going to pause the video once again and when we are finished with the installation I'm going to continue after my installation is completed I'm going to close both wizards and I'm going to use only DFS 0 1 to configure most of the settings here you can see that the installation is complete so if you go to tools you will see that now we have the DFS management console installed so if you open that you will see that on the left side we have the name spaces option and the replication option so the name spaces will provide us with the functionality to store different shared folders within one namespace so that it can be easily accessed by your users and of course you can use a namespace to map home folders for users and that can be done real easily by group policy so instead of all the users writing the name of the server and then checking the shared folder they can use only one namespace name to and in there you have all the different shared folders on different servers so what we need to do here is we need to create a new namespace so if you right-click on namespaces and choose the option new namespace the first option you will have to select the server that is going to be the namespace server so it's going to be n lb - EFS r01 and click Next the next option will be the namespace and permission settings for that namespace so I'm going to create just to show you how you can create the home folder and I'm going to name it home folders and under that you can see the edit settings so in here you will have several options the shared folder that will be created is going to be called the home folders and the links that are connecting all the other shared folders are going to be stored under the CD FS routes you can specify another location for the DFS routes but as these are just links it will not take a lot of space so I can use my C Drive to store the DFS root links there on under that you can see the permissions that you can assign to the links so I'm going to assign full access permissions for the admins and other users to have read and write permissions basically the links will help the users to locate their shared folders within different servers in the environment so I'm going to click OK to this click Next the next option will be the namespace type in here you can specify if you want to have a domain based namespace or standalone a domain names domain based namespace is used with interaction with Active Directory so that instead of you can see on the previews there are really good examples in the preview if we create a namespace for the domain based all my users will only have to use the NLB lab comm and then slash and the then the they can access the namespace from there so this can be used to map the the home folders bill easily from group policy on a later state instead if you don't have a domain currently you can use the standalone namespace but here you can see that they need to specify the name of the server so we need to remove this functionality where the user has to remember all the different file servers in your domain and instead we are going to use the one single domain where hopefully every single user knows in which company they are working so let me click Next it will provide me a summary and I will click create so I've successfully created the namespace I will click close to this one and if I expand the namespaces on the left side I can see that I have the NL b.com home folders namespace so this namespace will be available all over the network so if you click run and type and I'll be lab home folders press ok you will see that currently namespace is available over the network but it's empty so what I'm going to do is I'm going to create my first home folder you can do this by right clicking on the namespace and new folder and I'm going to name that Tom so tom is going to be a user that is working in my company and I'm going to add the folder target for Tom shared folder so I'm going to do this by writing NLB - FS R and then 0 1 and then the folders the shared folder that I want to create for Tom is going to be named home folders and I'm going to click OK and it will say that the home folder does not exist if I want to create it so I'm going to accept that and it will bring another window where you will have to create the share ad as it is not existent at the moment so the local path of the shared folder is going to be my Y Drive they're all the users will store all of their information and will use that information later to replicate to my DFS 0 - so I'm going to make the new folder and call that home folders and in there I'm going to click okay so the share name is going to be home folders the local part of the shared folder is going to be named home folders on my II Drive and I'm going to specify the permissions administrators will have full access other users who have read and write permissions click OK so let me edit that and add Tom because I want Tom to have his specific folder there so after I press ok it will create the shared folder for Tom so if I go to my computer browse my data drive open the home folders I can see that I have Tom and his own home folder under there so what I'll do next is I'm going to create another user that is going to be called Ana and I'm going to add another folder for Ana which is going to be and then shared folders I'm sorry home folders and then Anna press okay it will say that it does not exist and I want to create it okay press ok and now Anna and Tom both have home folders that are linked to my DFS name space under my local II drive so if I again go ahead and open my name space my shared in space I can see that Anna and Tom have links and if you double click on the link you will see that it's radio acting me to the physical location which is located on DFS 0-1 on my data drive next what I'm going to do is I'm going to configure the permissions for Bolton and Anna so for Anna I'm going to go to properties and then security because currently I'm the home folders home home folders folder is providing all the users with read and read permissions Anna Anna's folder will be visible for other users so what I need to do is I'm going to change the permissions and I'm going to disable the inheritance for the from the parent folder and will copy all the permissions from the parent to D sub folder so now we have the administrator with full control the system the creator owner and the user so I want to remove the users and just add Anna so I'm going to provide Anna wait read and write and modify permissions and I'm going to click OK and then ok once again and then okay so now Anna will be the only person that is able to open this folder if I click continue my administrator account will provide permissions to itself so yeah now term for example won't be able to access Ana Ana's home folder so it he won't be able to steal any important document so I'm going to do the same for Tom now so I'm going to right-click on Tom's folder click properties then security and I can see that again the users will be able to see a Tom's folder but I don't want this so I'm going to change the permissions and disable the inheritance copy over the permissions remove the permissions for the users and only add Tom to have modify and write and read permissions so if I press ok now my folders are separated so that the users cannot browse each other's home folders so what I'm going to do next now that I have a nine-ton I'm going to copy over their documents and all their information for example from their computers usually users tend to use the desktop or their C Drive Documents folder to store most of the important documents and for example when the computer fully crashes after that they go ahead and yell at you that you don't have a backup of that why you don't have a backup so it's a good thing to advise your users when you have home folders in place to store all of the important information under their home folder so I'm going to copy over some information and I'm going to proceed with creating the replication to DFS zero - now that I've copied their desktops and their documents I'm going to show you Anna desktop and documents folder on desktop and has ad n OB Solutions logo which is really nice and under documents she has an important document with a lot of important information in it so we need to replicate that as well and make sure that it's highly available and Tom on his desktop he has the contact card for Nick the IT guy I guess that everyone needs a contact card when something happens with his or his computer to contact the IT guy so yeah he has confidential information and in here you can see that if Nick fails with DFS he is going to be fired so yeah let me try to configure the DFS because I don't want to lose my job so I'm going to go to the replication and add a new replication group and I'm going to use the multi-purpose replication group this group is going to configure application between two or more servers and it's going to share the documents between them and it's going to store store copies of the information on both servers so I want that and I'm going to click Next I'm going to name the replication group for example home folder replication and I'm going to use my domain to store the replication information here you can have up to a optional description if you want I'm going to click Next and I'm going to add the servers that are going to be members of this replication group these are going to be my DFS r1 and DFS are two servers so I'm going to click Next in here you have three options the bottom one is no topology which you have to manually create how you want the files and folders to be replicated only one sided for example only four server 1 to server 2 or from server to server 1 the first option is the urban spoke in this option you will need to have at least 3 servers or more and basically what we will do is you have a central server a central DFS server and that DFS will replicate all the information to the other members of the DFS replication I don't want this because if my mem if my central server fails that means that the members won't be able to pick up information and pick up the latest information so I want to go with full mesh and what does that mean is that every single server will replicate all the information in my environment and will have all the up-to-date files so I'm going to stick with full mesh and click Next the next window you can configure the schedule for the replication and the bandwidth you can be really granular with this if you go on the below option you can edit the schedule and you can specify for example if you are working in a huge environment and during the day a lot of people are using the broadband doing the replication on a full bandwidth can make some issues for the users so for example if your working days or if your working hours start from 8 to 6 you can specify that from this time you will only use one megabit per second for the replication and during the other time you can specify that you want this to be the full bandwidth for the replication because on the outside of working hours hopefully no one will work so the replication could good work so I will cancel this and we'll go to replicate continuously and using the full bandwidth so I'm going to click Next the primary member of my DFS replication will be the DFS r01 because on the FS r 0 1 if you remember I've configured the namespace and I configured the home folders for an anthem so I'm going to choose the FS as 0 1 and press next and I'm going to specify the local pad for the server to replicate so I'm going to browse and replicate become folders going to click OK and the user name is going to be based on the on the pad name if you want you can create a custom name for that replication you can change even the permissions but I want to keep the existing permissions because I've already said that and I'm going to click OK and click Next so the primary member will be DFS r01 and the primary member local path will be eHome folders and I'm going to have to set the local path on DFS DFS r02 I'm going to edit and here it's currently disabled so I'm going to enable and click browse go to the e disk that a partition that we configured for the data and make a new folder there called home folder and press enter press okay so now it's going to replicate the data to the local home folder on DFS r02 and press you can specify here if you want this replicated folder to be read-only I want for example if users are going to use the DFS DFS r02 to connect to the shares and modify them from there it's a good idea to leave that unchecked and click OK click next and this will bring me a summary of what it will configure now so I'm going to click create and really fast it's going to create all of the settings that I've specified above and here you have a warning because in the past there were some issues with the staging folder and what is the staging folder basically it's a folder where the changes when a user makes a change to a file or creates a new document this staging quota will keep this document until it's fully replicated to the partner so Microsoft in the past had issues with the staging quota where for example if you create that quota to be not large enough it can remove some of the changes that the users made so it can make issues for you so the best way to to try to figure out how big the quota for you should be is you should look at the biggest files of the replication and sum them up and see what will be the total capacity of the biggest files so that's is the minimum that you need to set for your quota for the replication so let me close that so the replication it's saying that the replication will not begin until the scheduled time is configured and yeah it depends on the Active Directory services replication what and see as well and the pulling interval so I'm going to click OK here under replication now we have the home folder replication I can see the members I can see the home folders for the two members I missed an SC but this is not going to make any issues I can see the staging quota for my files and documents here I can see the connectors for the two servers and the replicated folders is the home folder so what I'm going to do next is I'm going to right click on home folder and we'll verify the topology to be sure that the replication is working fine so it's fully connected data can replicate so I'm going to click OK to this and I'm going to switch over to DFS 0 to I will need to login to the server because it's currently locked and if I go to data II I can see that I have the home folder created and under there I have Anna with her desktop and the ennoble logo and the documents important document it's there and the other folder for Tom which is the desktop and with my contact card so I'm going to perform a test right now to be sure that the replication is working both sides so what I'm going to do is I'm going to create another shirt folder under the home folder and I'm going to name that folder test just for replication tests so if I switch to DFS 1 I can see that the test is there so the replication from my DFS 0 to 2 DFS 0 1 is working I'm going to check once again with creating a small test text document with test document and in there I will specify that it's working so this is already saved I'm going to switch the FS 0 to let me open the test test document working so my DFS is working my replication is working and what I'm going to do next is I'm going to switch to my Windows 10 machine and I'm going to log in with Anna and map her home folder so I'm going to log in with another user I forgot Ana's password and now I'm going to log in with Anna's account now that I'm into Anna's profile I'm going to open the file explorer and in here I'm going to use computer map network drive and I'm going to use the letter H for home and I'm going to map Anna and as home folder so this is going to be an lb lat and then home folders and then Anna let's see if I spelled that correctly I added the space let me remove the space from that and finish yep it accepted that and now I can see that anna has her own home folder and this home folder is under NLB lab so here I have my n lb logo which is accessible let me open that with paint there it is and I have the documents folder with the really important information in it what I'm going to try just for tests is I'm going to map Tom's shared folder here to see if my permissions are working correctly so NL b-flat shared home folders Tom and it's asking me for credentials because Ana does not have the permissions to access Tom's folder so if I access for example the NLB lab slash home folders I'll be able to see that I currently have two users Anna and Tom and when I draw open to try to open term it will say that I don't have permissions to look into Tom's documents and when I try to open Ana I can see that I have permissions so I guess this is working but just for testing purposes to see the replication is working fully working Anna will ask me to create another folder for her which is going to be cold company details so in there and I will have a an Excel worksheet that will be for the company prices and let me see now if I switch to my DFS zero two I can see that under home folder and Anna I have the company details and in there I have the company prices XLS excel sheet let me switch the DFS zero one and minimize this okay under Anna I have again the company details folder and the Excel spreadsheet so now as my DFS name space is fully configured with Tom and Anna only I can continue and configure my other users in my domain and hopefully I won't lose my job as an IT guy and will continue to bring some interesting videos to you guys so this is the overview of how you can create DFS namespace and DFS replication in Windows Server 2012 r2 I hope that you enjoyed the video if you did you can like if you didn't like this video you can click this like button and if you have a comment or if you have any questions you can put them in the section below so I will try to answer them when I can so thank you very much for viewing and see you soon

Channel: NLB Solutions

Views: 114,299

Rating: 4.9249449 out of 5

Keywords: Windows Server 2012 R2 DFS, DFSR, DFS configure, Server 2012 DFS, How to configure DFS namespace, How to configure DFS Replication, DFS Namespace, DFS Replication, Windows Server DFSR, DFS Home Folders, Step by step DFS 2012 R2, Distributed File System, Distributed File System 2012 R2

Id: p3IL7pi0r4A

Length: 38min 42sec (2322 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2015