Scripting DFS

Distributed File System (DFS) is becoming increasingly popular as a way to present users with a link to resources without regard for the actual back-end storage location. As the Microsoft article "How DFS Works" (http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/a9096e88-1634-4da6-b820-537341d349061033.mspx) explains, DFS lets you create a virtual view of shared folders through a namespace that an administrator creates. Users can view the namespace without needing to know where the data resides, regardless of whether it's on a Windows server or a non-Windows storage device. Because of DFS's increased popularity, I'm getting more frequent questions about how to script configuration and reporting of DFS. Fortunately for script writers, Microsoft provides several command-line tools that you can use to configure and query DFS. (For details about these tools, see the sidebar "DFS Scripting Tools," linked above.) However, these tools can return a lot more information than you really need. For example, most systems administrators and backup operators simply need to know the locations of specific back-end servers so that they can restore accidentally deleted files. To address this need, I wrote the DFSReportBuilder.bat script, a tool that will help you get valid output on the back-end target server locations that your DFS links are really pointing to. Using this script will make it easier for systems administrators and backup operators to locate backups that require restoration. . . .