Active Directory, DNS & DFS troubleshooting
At a remote location, users are having problems so severe some have stopped using their computers. The location is a few hours away from headquarters (where the network is ran from) and they have a 1Mb internet connection for 100+ people, more will be added before long. The internal network is setup correctly and has no problems, all network equipment is less than 2 years old and all users are connected via cat5. There is one windows 2008 server and a few win 2000 servers.
I believe the issue is an Active Directory/DNS/DFS localization issue. Without a local replicated Active Directory, DNS or DFS server, each call for anything regarding network access would have to go over the internet to the main location, even to do something as simple as open a file. In fact, correct me if I am incorrect, but there could be multiple trips over the internet to headquarters because DNS would have to resolve what machine to get a file from, then a new call would have to be made to download the file.
The question is, how can I be 100% sure of what I suspect is wrong and what steps should I take to troubleshoot this? If any one of the three are not localized at the current location, this could throw a huge problem for everyone, correct?
Here are a few things I would like to ensure I am correct in saying, before I try them, IP info would be obtained through ipconfig /all:
Thank you for your help!
I believe the issue is an Active Directory/DNS/DFS localization issue. Without a local replicated Active Directory, DNS or DFS server, each call for anything regarding network access would have to go over the internet to the main location, even to do something as simple as open a file. In fact, correct me if I am incorrect, but there could be multiple trips over the internet to headquarters because DNS would have to resolve what machine to get a file from, then a new call would have to be made to download the file.
The question is, how can I be 100% sure of what I suspect is wrong and what steps should I take to troubleshoot this? If any one of the three are not localized at the current location, this could throw a huge problem for everyone, correct?
Here are a few things I would like to ensure I am correct in saying, before I try them, IP info would be obtained through ipconfig /all:
If I ping the DNS server which the computer has on file, and it isn't around 2ms or less, can we for sure determine that the DNS is resolved outside of the building?
How do I determine if a mapped drive is coming from the local network or outside of the network? (WAN) I believe the problem can be fixed if it's outside of the building because we can put a local replicated DFS server in place and replicate all of the files, having the users read/save to the local server, instead of the one at the main location over the internet.
What about Active Directory? How do I troubleshoot it and determine where the server is (again, over LAN or WAN?)
Do I sound like I am on target for what I think the root of the problem is with the network?
Thank you for your help!
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along with nslook up info on command promt at bth sides...