Windows DFS query

[8bit]

Because of an imminent partial company sale, the organisation I work for require to split a DFS structure shared by two sites. I work in IT but not much with Windows/AD/DFS so I have a grasp of the basics but I'm shaky on the terminology so bear with me...

We have a shared S: drive which is mapped to DFS using the format \\domain.net\dfsroot\ and as above, this is shared between two sites. One site is being sold off (I work in that site) and the other is staying with the global organisation. The DFS root has two paths in the referrals list, one on each site. There are SMB shares within the namespace on each site so there's a separate piece of work to ensure that each site has the data they need but that's not what I'm looking at here.

What I'm trying to suss out is, for the period of time after we have to split this out but before we migrate to the new company's domain, is it possible to have both sites access DFS with the exact same root path (like \\domain.net\dfsroot) but depending on which site your DFS client is located you point to the local DFS root only? The scenario we're trying to avoid is significant pain and breakage by having to adopt a new DFS root path name for the local site. Yes, we'll have to migrate everything in time anyway when we become part of the new company but we have to do the DFS split within the next few weeks and there simply isn't time to do it all properly before then.

[Mr Kitten]

Yes, you can do this - configure the DFS target with the option "Exclude targets outside of the client's site".

This assumes that you have Active Directory Sites and Services correctly configured, though!

[8bit]

OK thanks, I was aware of that option but I figured there must be something else to do before that - I mean, anything to do with AD Sites and Services, so that a client on site A gets pointed to the DFS server on that site and the one on site B gets that DFS server, even though both sites refer to the same DFS root path?

[Mr Kitten]

Make sure that each physical site has an AD site created with the correct subnet assigned to it...

[8bit]

I should have posted later yesterday afternoon - I think we've sussed it out, we already have the AD sites set up correctly and have the DFS servers in each site, for each namespace it really is as simple as setting that parameter you describe. Many thanks for your help!