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Folder replication between XP workstations over a VPN

We have two offices connected via an IPSec VPN over an adsl internet connection. The subnets are 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.1.0 respectively.

Daily work in one office is wanted to be replicated to the main office for backup and archival purposes.

Is there any way that the standard Windows offline files synchronisation can work here?

The problem I see is that the VNC is not transparent to NetBios? File/printer sharing? and so shared directory names are not visible over the VPN. Can the setup be improved to change this?

If sharenames could become visible, then I suppose an Xcopy command would work perfectly since the backup requirement is only in one direction?

Key to this requirement is to do the synchronisation at night on a scheduled basis so as not to interfere with the available bandwidth during business hours.

Thanks in advance - Mark

Bill_Fleury

Do you have a server at both locations? If so, I would suggest using a Distributed File System share, you can read more about them here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/storage/dfs/default.mspx

It works pretty slick once you have it all configured properly.

VPN's should be fairly transparent, if you are unable to see other computers on the domain over the VPN you more than likely have a DNS issue.

mbhh

ASKER

No. Only XP workstations at the remote office.

The remote office is set up as a workgroup - would it help if they were joined to the main-office domain? Why would that be necessary I wonder?

Pentrix2

I don't see how offline files will work since they are primary used to keep a replicate copy of your network drive on either your desktop or laptop on that same domain. The only thing I can think of is to do a nightly schedule.

Pentrix2

plemieux72

You could use a scheduled robocopy job with the mirror option each night. You could use the admin shares like c$ to copy the data to. However, without servers, there is no possibility to leverage DFS replication or offline files or any kind of more robust enterprise-grade replication solution.

<<The remote office is set up as a workgroup - would it help if they were joined to the main-office domain? Why would that be necessary I wonder?>>
Joining the machines to the domain will allow them to use the user account database sitting on your domain controllers thereby simplifying user account management and user logins. This does not really have anything to do with your initial question however.

mbhh

ASKER

My question re Domain vs Workgroup for remote office .. I was wondering if the Windows Network Neighbourhood would include the remote subnet of hosts if both subnets were part of the same Domain?

eg PC1 on LAN1 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 and PC2 on LAN2 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 - can either one ping the other by name if they are both members of the same Domain? And would shared directories be visible between subnets as well?

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plemieux72

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Pentrix2

I don't think mbhh stated in his/her requirement to purchase additional hardware. I believe the goal is to get it working with existing hardware and software.

Pentrix2

mbhh

ASKER

This is all sorted now. Shares *ARE* visible across the VPN, but only when IP addresses are used for the hostnames.

eg \\192.168.1.10\sharename can be seen from the 192.168.0.0 subnet of course.

With that, xcopy works a treat, and each evening a scheduled task now runs to copy the changed files across.

Thank you to all for your input, but I don't think anyone quite nailed it. Can anyone suggest how to handle points allocation?

Bill_Fleury

If you feel the answers here did not help, and have solved the question yourself, you can post in the Community Support TA requesting this question be PAQ'd with points refunded.

https://www.experts-exchange.com/Community_Support/

Be sure to provide a link back to this question in your posting.

Bill

Rob Williams

If you wanted to use NetBIOS names at this point rather than IP's you could make use of the LMHosts file which creates a table of IP's and computer names. LMHosts is located in the Windows directory under c:\Windows (or WINNT)\System32\Drivers\Etc\LMHosts.sam , instructions are included within the file. Any line starting with # is just a comment and is ignored. Open the file with Notepad and add entries for your computers as below;
192.168.0.101 CompName #PRE
Hit enter when each line is complete (important), then save the file without a file extension. To be sure there is no extension ,when saving enclose in quotations like "LMHosts". Now when you try to connect to a computer name it should find it as it will search the LMHosts file for the record before connecting.
More details regarding LMHosts file:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/cnet/cnfd_lmh_QXQQ.asp

mbhh

ASKER

Thank you RobWill, that seems fine for just a host name, but perhaps does not help when a UNC (including sharename) is required.

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Rob Williams

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mbhh

ASKER

Yes sorry, my earlier testing of this was wrong and you are right re the UNC working.

Rob Williams

Might be useful. Good luck,
--Rob