DFS referral cache duration

Question

We have two domain-based DFS servers in our main office. A smaller location is connected through a VPN with the main office and uses the DFS for accessing shared resources in the main as well as at the own location.

We would like to increase the referral cache duration in case of a network problem. So the small location would still be able to access the shared resources at the own location because the clients has the local dfs cache.

That was the plan / thought. I tested the settings and recognized, that the client isn't able to connect to the shares after losing the connection to the dfs servers. But if I run

dfsutil.exe cache referral

, I see in the cache the UNC paths from the shares.

Is there a 'lack consideration'? Is client cache not enough to access the shares if the DFS servers are unavailable?

thanks for help or any tips

Patrick

Answer 1

The cache is only used to switch between the DFS server if one is not available any more or if a link has more then one target.

To accessing a link inside the dfs namespace, at least one DFS server must be available. The client can't use the information inside the cache to accessing directly the link target.