DFS for Distro Points?

Our Wintel group say this is the smart way to keep shares replicated. The way they explained it, the master DFS share is where we upload using Casper Admin, then DFS simply replicates out to the other DFS shares. It's supposed to be built into Windows Server 2008, although I know very little about Windows.

Windows Server 2008 distribution point replication is really important, and holding some environments back from fully migrating. Hoping to see formal recommendation from JAMF. :)

Don

Don - that's exactly what was explained to me as well. Basically "master and remote".

DFS would then take care of the repliaction.

while this would work for 10.7 as DFS is supposedly supported ( not tried it yet ) how would this work with 10.6? Can you point 10.6 to a DFS child so it only sees it as an SMB share?

Here's what I got from JAMF awhile back:

1.) Create a new folder that will be used for the file share 2.) Create a user that will be used for read access to the file share
3.) Create another user that will be used for read/write access to the file share
4.) Enable SMB or AFP file sharing services
5.) Add the folder in step one as a file share. *This should be a root context. i.e. smb://server.yourCompany.com/CasperShare, not smb://server.yourCompany.com/Shares/CasperShare6.) Assign file sharing permissions for the read only and read/write users respectively to the share.
7.) Enable HTTP or HTTPS web services
8.) Create a symbolic link on the document root of the file share *i.e. ln -s /path/to/share /path/to/docroot
9.) Ensure web service has access to files in the share *i.e. http(s)://server.gene.com/CasperShare/file.txt *disable directory listing
That is all we need to create a distribution point. After this is done, copy the data from the setup into the distribution point replication section of the JSS web interface. Test write access with a sync from Casper Admin. Test read access with a policy that can install both from the SMB/AFP share and HTTP. You can use the override defaults section of the policy to force the package to use that distribution point and to force SMB/AFP over HTTP.

DFS is for both replication and for namespace, but you can use one without the other.

When people refer to DFS in relation to OS X, they're talking about namespace.

Reporting Back On Our Implementation Of DFS for use as DPs

Creating a single folder in the DFS namespace called Caspershare worked like a charm, file and folder syncing works beautifully. Connecting to the Caspershare works perfectly... however at present the caveat is

Because we're adjusting the setting in the JSS to mount a folder called Caspershare we get into another problem (currently active at the time of writing this post)

Could not mount distribution point
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=10178
Sum up is connecting to different servers with the same sharename ie Caspershare... results in random errors when connecting to DP's. This causes policies to fail randomly....

To get around this we removed the caspershare folder and added the Casper folders ie Packages, scripts etc independently. The results proved that while Windows machines can function as normal in this arrangement. Mac clients run very very slow. The more folders that are in the root of the DFS namespace the worse it becomes.

Conclusion the caveat
Having a single folder at the root of the namespace called Caspershare and then child folders beneath ie packages, scripts etc... Results in the best performance and works perfectly syncing and load balancing however we run into the issue of discussion ID 10178

Having multiple folders called packages, scripts etc at the root of the namespace causes clients when connecting to the DFS namespace, lets say packages directory it could mount a completely different server when connecting to the scripts directory. This causes massive delays for the Mac's and is undesired. Its load balancing the folders and not the servers in this case. The more files/ packages and scripts you have also attribute to more delays as DFS has to work harder.

We've decided at present to use DFS for DP replication only, and use Caspers Load balancing option in the JSS.

I hope this helps...

Regards
Blake