SOLVED: Users In Remote Offices Cannot Access DFS Namespace

We’ve recently had a situation in which users in most offices could connect to our DFS namespaces without any problem at all, but users in two of the remote offices would just receive connection errors.

It is recommended that you have at least one DFS server in each site but many companies especially smaller ones don’t. It is also recommended that Exclude Targets Outside of the Client Site on the REFERRALS tab be checked on. These two things mean that it is not wildly uncommon to find remote offices that cannot connect to DFS namespaces.

If you have users that cannot connect to DFS shares from some sites Exclude Targets Outside of the Client Site might be the problem.

Exclude Targets Outside of the Client Site on the REFERRALS tab is intended to stop DFS from using targets outside of their office thereby reducing WAN traffic and increasing performance. However, if you don’t have a DFS replica in a remote site, that setting is going to stop users from accessing the DFS share at all.

There are three possible solutions:

1. Uncheck the Exclude Targets Outside of the Client Site checkbox on the REFERRALS tab
2. Add a DFS server to each of the sites that cannot connect to the DFS shares
3. Make sure that you have the IP address ranges in ACTIVE DIRECTORY SITES AND SERVICES configured properly