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Edward StevensFlag for United States of America

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Migrate Shares and Permissions from Windows 2000 Server to Windows 2003 Cluster Server - Clarion 500 SAN

We need to migrate our Windows 2000 Server to a new Windows 2003 Cluster environment while preserving the shares and permissions for those shares that exist on the 2000 server.  The existing server has the data located on a Clarion 500 SAN.  The new cluster will be assigned to that "same" storage group.

Is there a utility or procedure that we can use to (as effortlessly as possible) automate the transfer of the shares and permissions from the current server to the new cluster.  **Note that the new cluster will be assigned to the existing SAN volume so the current server and the new cluster will not be able to have access to that resource simultaneously.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Ed

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Harps_Barfi

Just did something like this today ...

All depends on how many shares you have and how intricate they are as to whether this would be usefull for you

I used robocopy (freeware robust file copy - available from microsoft)

and used the following command line options to replicate one entire directory structure to another server including all security information.

Our shares dont apply security settings - its all done through file/folder level security rather than share security as it makes life easier working out the effective permissions the script i used to copy over the data is :

net use x: /d
net use x: \\servername\e$
robocopy e:\shares x:\shares /e /z /copyall /XO /v /r:5 /w:10 /log:copylog.txt

after the data has finished copying I created the 15 share directories within the "shares" directory.

This allowed us to migrate from one server to a newer server without loss of data - after the copy was verified(parsing the log file) we changed the name of the new server to match the name of the old server so users on monday wont even realise we upgraded the server - completely seemless :)

hope that helps

\Harps

forgot to mention

for another larger site we are currently evaluating secure copy from scriptlogic :

http://www.scriptlogic.com/products/securecopy/

It might be a better solution if your share structure is more complicated than my example above - everybody ive spoken to speaks highly of the product - although i havent played with it extensively myself.

\Harps
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Harps

This is good info, but I don't think it applies to us unfortunately.  Since the existing server and the new cluster cannot use the same SAN volume at the same time, a "copy" utility / process has little value.  The volume on the Clarion is roughly 1TB in size with hundreds of shares and numerous permissions per share to control access.

We're looking for something that will allow us to duplicate / replicate the share / permission information only (no data transfer) between the two environments.  We don't have enough disk space to copy the 1TB of data to a new volume on the SAN or elsewhere for that matter.  :(

We had done some research on the Microsoft site and found a registry procedure which does accomplish this very task, but it doesn't work in a clustered environment.  Modifying the registry on a cluster server doesn't allow the "cluster" to see it.  It did work well for migrating shares from one single server to another single server.  Article:  http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=125996

At any rate.  Since the two environments cannot use the same SAN volume at the same time and we don't have any additional disk to use for a copy utility, we are looking more for some utility / process that will copy the share / permission information to the new server without actually trying to move or validate the location of the data itself.  The idea is to get the share / permission data onto the cluster and then shut down the original server and bring up the cluster on the same SAN volume.

Ed
I dont think im gonna be much use to you on this one mate - but will keep an eye on the thread as it seems to be somethng very usefull to kow with a large 2003 migration comming up

good luck

\Harps
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David_Fong

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You could also consider some additional hardware - something like this: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10188. You could then migrate the files off the CX500 LUN onto the USB drive then migrate them back.

Having said that, David_Fong's suggestion looks perfect. Copy the share and permissions details off the LUN while it is attached to the W2K server, the move cluster servers into the appropriate storage group and copy the permissions back again.
 
Hi Steven,

With Robocopy you can still create All File Structure YET not copying the files :)

On this page, " http://www.ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html ", find for " /CREATE ".

That's what you need !

Best Regards !
If you need more assistance, just Post back !

Best Regards !
The file structure is already there Jon, and since he's going to re-present the NTFS volume to another cluster in the same domain the permissions will be there as well, it's just the shares and share permissions he needs to duplicate. I realised you can't script it and it has to be by big batch file after all since both clusters won't be seeing the file system at the same time. Could put MatrixServer on it and let both clusters (infact all 4 servers) share out the same data at the same time but it's not the cheapest product around.
Sorry for the delay in responding.  I got caught up in another crisis.  :)

I am reviewing the solution presented by David Fong as it looks like what we're after.  I will post the results of my tests using that solution shortly.

Thanks to all who responded.

Ed
Once again, I apologize for the delay.  My system engineers who are actually working on this project ran into a with their serevr hardware and still have not yet been able to attempt the suggestion by Mr. Fong.  We are interested in the solution and will post our results as quickly as we are able to execute it.

Your continued patience on the outcome of this issue is greatly appreciated.  We haven't forgotten about it.

Thanks

Ed
I'm not sure it will work as stated, problem is that both servers would still have to have access to the data at the same time for the share permissions to migrate. Possible workaround is to put a dummy drive in place of the second server's access to the SAN volume and so the shares and permissions would be created for this volume without any data on it, then remove it and mount the SAN volume.  As mcp_jon says  you would create the dummy directory structure on the dummy e: drive with robocopy but as there's no data it would only need a few meg to create the dummy folder tree.
Good to know.  My SNEs (senior network engineers) who are working on this project told me this morning that they will be ready to attempt this procedure by Friday (2/17/2006) of this week so we will have to wait just a little bit longer for the results.
Just an update on our issue...My SNEs attempted this procedure with unsuccessfull results.  However, they informed me that they were still having other issues with the process as a whole and felt that the failure was not directly linked to the suggestions of Mr. Fong.

We will be making another attempt at this using Mr. Fong's idea within the next week.  Will post results as they are available.
My appologies to Mr. Fong and anyone who reads this thread in the future.  While my engineers never did complete the project, it was their opinion that his solution would have worked had they tried it.  I am going to award him the points and close this ticket.