Chapter 11: Creating and Managing Shared Folders BAI617

Chapter Topics Creating the Shares Managing Permissions Distributed File System (DFS) Exploring the Network File System (NFS)

Creating the Shares As introduced in Chapter 10 - Before you can create a shared folder, you must have the appropriate rights to do so. This requires that you are either an Administrator or a Power User. By default, just because you have a server running doesn’t mean it has anything available for your users. Before they can actually get to resources on the server, you must share your resources.

Share Basics Previously Shared: UNC shown Share button unavailable Advanced Sharing Option

Advanced Sharing Options Creating multiple shares: – Administrators have the ability to create two shares that point to the same directory. – Useful when working with departments that use different names for the same resource

Advanced Sharing Options

Setting User Limits – Why? As an Administrator, you need to consider how your users connect to the share to use these applications before you limit them based on concurrency. For example: If the applications under your share are each licensed for 100 concurrent users, you can configure your server share to maintain that limit

Share Permissions Share permissions are possibly the easiest forms of access control you will deal with in Windows Server. Remember that share permissions take effect only whenever you try to access a computer over the network.

Share Permissions Note that the Everyone group, by default, has Read access permissions, which is a great step forward in the Windows world in terms of security. Until Server 2003, the Everyone group was given Full Control access by default. Another new feature in Server 2008 is that the Everyone group is no longer added to a folder when shared.

Share Permissions PermissionLevel of Access Full ControlThe assigned group can perform any and all functions on all files and folders through the share. ChangeThe assigned group can read and execute, as well as change and delete, files and folders through the share. ReadThe assigned group can read and execute files and folders but has no ability to modify or delete anything through the share.

Exploring DFS: The Distributed File System From the Authors: – DFS allows you to create a single share that encompasses every file share–based resource on your network. Think of it as a home for all the file shares on your network with a “links” page that points the clients to the particular server or servers that actually house those shares.

DFS DFS Namespace – DFS namespaces enable you to group shared folders that are located on different servers into one or more logically structured namespaces. Each namespace appears to users as a single shared folder with a series of subfolders

DFS DFS Replication – DFS replication is an efficient, multiple-master replication engine that you can use to keep folders synchronized between servers across limited bandwidth network connections. It replaces the File Replication Service (FRS) as the replication engine for DFS namespaces

DFS Terminology Root – The top level share that will be visible to the network Links – The link is another share somewhere on the network that is placed under the root Stand- Alone vs. Domain-Based – This decision controls the way replication will happen in your DFS environment. Domain based will result replicas of your DFS structure being housed and maintained through the ADS

Installing DFS: Domain-Based By default DFS is not installed

Installing DFS: Domain-Based DFS is a File Service role…

Installing DFS: Domain-Based

Configuring DFS Replication Replicating data between servers will proved an extra layer of fault tolerance. – Ensuring data integrity is the fundamental duty of all Administrators – use this method as one of your ticks of the trade.

Configuring DFS Replication Configure the Group Add DC servers to the group Verify replication

Configuring DFS Replication

Linking Folders to the Root

Connecting to the DFS root Clients connect to the DFS root rather than the server the folders live on.

Connecting to the DFS root

Working with NFS Network File System provides a file-sharing solution for organizations that have a mixed Windows and Unix/Linux environment. NFS gives you the ability to share files across these different platforms when you are running Server 2008

Working with NFS Active Directory lookup – You have the ability to use Windows Active Directory to access files. The Identity Management for Unix Active Directory schema extension includes Unix user identifier (UID) and group identifier (GID) fields. This enables Server for NFS and Client for NFS to look up Windows-to-Unix user account mappings directly from Active Directory Domain Services. Identity Management for Unix simplifies Windows-to-Unix user account mapping management in Active Directory Domain Services. Enhanced server performance – Services for NFS include a file filter driver, which significantly reduces common server file access latencies. Enhanced Unix support – Services for NFS support the following versions of Unix: Sun Microsystems Solaris version 9, Red Hat Linux version 9, IBM AIX version 5L 5.2, and Hewlett Packard HP-UX version 11i. However, newer versions will undoubtedly be supported in the future.

Installing NFS

Review Creating the Shares Managing Permissions Distributed File System (DFS) Exploring the Network File System (NFS)

Questions?

Lab Environment