3.4.0 MxFS for CIFS Administration Guide

Chapter 2: Configure CIFS with Matrix File Shares 12

Configure DFS

The Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) can be used in conjunction

with CIFS to provide high availability failover and load balancing across

the nodes in the matrix.

NOTE: If you are using Windows 2003, the DFS namespace must be

administered from with the Windows 2003 version of the

administrative tools. Do not use the administrative tools provided

with Windows 2000 to manage DFS.

Setup Scenario

The DFS setup procedure uses this scenario:

• A three-node matrix clust[1-3] in the domain data. The two domain

controllers are dc[1-2]. These domain controllers are running

Windows 2000 (or higher) with Active Directory.

• Matrix Server and MxFS for CIFS are installed and Matrix Server is

started.

• On Windows 2003, a shared PSFS volume is used for root and another

shared PSFS volume is used for the link.

• A shared PSFS volume is mounted as x: on nodes clust[1-3]. The

directory x:\foo is shared through CIFS via MxFS for CIFS.

• All clients needing to access the share foo are either in domain data or

in another domain that has a trust relationship with data.

• Clients are either Windows 2000 and higher, Windows 9x with the

DFS client installed, NT4 with the DFS client installed, or other clients

as described in Chapter 1.

Considerations for Using DFS

When using DFS with CIFS, you should be aware of the following:

• We strongly recommend that domain-based DFS be used. Stand-alone

DFS does not provide fault tolerance on root.