DFS replication issues

nikitamobile855 

Thanks, Nikita. That helped a great deal and saved a lot of time.

I'll start at the end and work backwards.

You want to run these commands to clean up what is a very broken DFS-R configuration. I'll provide an in-depth explanation after the commands

Remove-ADObject -Identity "CN=45d9316b-1098-408e-a65d-8ce8449f0aaa,CN=DFSR-LocalSettings,CN=UZTASSRV01,OU=Domain Controllers,DC=sm,DC=local" -Recursive -Confirm:$false;
Remove-ADObject -Identity "CN=a7297769-fdcd-4490-ae1c-c80808f44d36,CN=DFSR-LocalSettings,CN=UZTASSRV01,OU=Domain Controllers,DC=sm,DC=local" -Recursive -Confirm:$false;
Remove-ADObject -Identity "CN=DFS,CN=DFSR-GlobalSettings,CN=System,DC=sm,DC=local" -Recursive -Confirm:$false;
Remove-ADObject -Identity "CN=DFS_IT,CN=DFSR-GlobalSettings,CN=System,DC=sm,DC=local" -Recursive -Confirm:$false;
Remove-ADObject -Identity "CN=UZTASSVR02,CN=Topology,CN=Domain System Volume,CN=DFSR-GlobalSettings,CN=System,DC=sm,DC=local" -Recursive -Confirm:$false;

Overview

What the JSON output you provided showed is:

1. There are no DFS namespaces configured;
2. The DFS replication group definitions are badly broken in places;
3. The "built-in" SYSVOL DFS-R definition is fine but contains an orphaned reference to a domain controller no longer in existence (UZTASSVR02);
4. Three DFS replications groups are defined:
   1. DFS;
   2. DFS_IT;
   3. Domain System Volume.

Approach

There were two options I could have pursued:

1. Add the missing "MemberReference" values onto the existing "msDFSR-Subscriber" objects; or
2. Delete the DFS and DFS_IT DFS replication groups.

I have chosen option 2 since:

1. There is no associated DFS namespace;
2. The replication groups would only have a single member, which is pointless;
3. It provides you with the cleanest outcome, since you can always create new DFS namespaces and replication groups if you decide to later on, and you won't have to worry about old, corrupt data lingering around.

Explanation of each command

Once you have removed these objects, it will take DFS-R a little while to recognise the changes.

If you want to hurry the process up, you can do any one of the following:

1. Restart UZTASSRV01 (since it's the only remaining host); or
2. Restart the the "DFSR" service on UZTASSRV01; or
3. Run the following command on UZTASSRV01 (it may not be installed though, which is fine):

dfsdiag pollad

Anyhow, once you've either waited a bit or hurried things up, you should find the Event Viewer errors stop.

Cheers,

Lain