HP Rp5405 Configuring and Troubleshooting MS DFS links in an HP CIFS Server (S - Page 2

Executive summary HP CIFS Server (Samba) has the ability to host Microsoft Distributed File System (MS DFS). With careful planning, this can enable you to create a virtual smb file and directory tree spanning multiple servers and file systems. This whitepaper presents a sample configuration of MS DFS on an HP CIFS Server and discusses several potential pitfalls encountered in a MS DFS environment. What IS MS DFS? MS DFS, put simply, is an agreed upon set of protocols implemented within the CIFS (Common Internet File System) protocol to enable links to be created within a CIFS Share that point to shares on OTHER CIFS Servers, and for those links to be followed by a client accessing them. For the purposes of this paper, we will configure an HP CIFS Server (version 2.2k), available from http://software.hp.com, with a single share, with files and directories LOCAL to the server as well as MS DFS links to shares on a WIN2k and WIN2k3 server. All of the information contained in this paper is equally applicable to HP CIFS Server revisions based on 2.2.x OR 3.x versions of Samba unless otherwise specified. This information should also be applicable to these versions of Samba running on Linux. We will use a Windows/XP client for testing. Configuring MS DFS on HP CIFS Server Test environment We will be using a combination of HP CIFS Server, Win2k and Win2k3 servers, and a Windows/XP client for the examples in this paper. Table 1: Test Environment HP CIFS Server name MS DFS enabled share name MS DFS link MS DFS link Win2k server name Win2k Share name Win2k3 server name Win2k3 Share name Windows Xp client name Xp Username rkm-nt Dfsroot linka -> \\ceres\shared_stuff linkb -> \\mccall\shared_stuff Ceres shared_stuff Mccall shared_stuff Mccallevo FreddieTheFish