Why DFS doesn’t replicate certain files ?
January 28, 2008
Posted by Roel in : Technical , trackback
I always advise everyone to use DFS (Distributed File System), even when you do not plan to replicate files/folders between servers, it’s a good way of getting rid of all that server names.
Do these problems sound familiar: "On which server was that share ?" or "The share is running out of space, but we can’t move it to another server because 1000+ employees mapped it" ?
Take a look at this video (or show it to your manager), it’s easy to understand.
Problems
After I configured DFS for the Home Directories share (using replication to another server), i saw that not all files were replicated.
5 files to be exactly, 4 pictures (jpg/gif) and 1 PDF document.
Diving into this issue, there are a few reasons why files won’t get replicated;
- Files with the Temporary file attribute.
- Some photo cameras had a ‘bug’ which caused the photos to have the temporary file attribute, these photos are widely spread over the internet.
- I’ve seen ‘PDF Printers’ (software) which made PDF files with the temporary file attibute.
How to fix ?
Clicking the ‘properties’ of a file, you can only see it’s ‘Read-Only’, ‘Hidden’ and ‘Archive’ file attributes. I found a handy tool to (bulk) change these file attributes: febooti fileTweak (30day trial).
Note: Only files can have the ‘temporary file attribute’, not folders.
- Files with the Archive file attribute
(see above, same applies as for "Files with the Temporary file attribute")
- All .bak and .tmp extensions as well al filenames staring with a tilde (~) character.
How to fix ?
The *.bak, *.tmp and ~*.* files are excluded by default. However, there is a little trick;
Removing the File Filter exclusion doesn’t remove it but sets it back to default! (which is: " exclude *.bak, *.tmp and ~*.* "). Instead, put a comma (,) character in the File Filter. Now it really won’t exclude files anymore !
- There are some other circumstances in which files won’t get replicated but these are so specific that i assume you know what you’re doing so you know the cause.
i.e.: NTFS Mounted drives or Files encrypted using EFS.
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