Scripting the creation of a DFS namespace

You can use the Dfsutil command and other commands to create a new DFS namespace on Windows Server 2008. This approach is useful if you want to automate the creation of DNS namespaces using batch files. It's also useful if you want to create a DFS namespace in an environment where you have Server Core deployed.

As an example, let's create a domain-based namespace named Corp for the fabrikam.com domain that uses the Server Core computer SEA-SC1 as its namespace server:

On SEA-SC1, create a folder named DFSRoots on the root of the system volume as follows:

mkdir C:\DFSRoots

Create a subfolder named Corp that will be the root folder of your namespace as follows:

mkdir C:\DFSRoots\Corp

Share the Corp folder as sharename Corp and assign Allow Read share permissions for the Everyone group as follows:

net share Corp=C:\DFSRoots\Corp

Corp was shared successfully.

Verify the share permissions as follows:

net share Corp

Share name Corp

Path C:\DFSRoots\Corp

Remark

Maximum users No limit

Users

Caching Manual caching of documents

Permission Everyone, READ

Use Dsutil to create the namespace as follows:

dfsutil root addDom \\SEA-SC1\Corp "Namespace for internal Corp network"

DfsUtil command completed successfully.

Verify the creation of the namespace using Dfsutil as follows:

dfsutil domain fabrikam.com

Roots on Domain fabrikam.com

corp

Done with Roots on Domain fabrikam.com

Done processing this command.

You can then use other Dfsutil commands to add additional namespace servers, add namespace folders, add folder targets, and so on. You can perform each command interactively or create a batch script to automate the namespace creation and configuration process. Once you're finished, you can usethe DFS Management console to verify that your namespace has been created and configured as you intended. For more information on how to do all these things, see my book Windows Server 2008 Server Core Administrator's Pocket Consultant from Microsoft Press.

 

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