We have a temporary situation where there is a remote office in the US connected via a vpn to servers in the UK (domain controllers, file servers, etc)
To try to improve things in the remote office I recently set up one of their computers as a local file server. To make it seem more appropriate I gave the computer a second DNS name so that instead of reaching it by \\computername they can reach it by \\localfileservername (the actual names are changed for this SF question)
This worked fine for a while. But now, when I try to access \\localfileservername I get "There are currently no logon servers available to service this logon request" but if I access it via \\computername it works fine.
Oddly I also get the error when I access it via \\ipaddress
Also to improve things in this temporary arrangement I have a number of servers set up in the hosts files of the machines at the remote office, and I added the name of this impromptu file server to the hosts file after I set it up (as well as in the DNS server).
So my question is, is having two names for the computer causing this problem? And is there anything I can do or check to improve this situation or get rid of this error.
Incidentally I'm finding this error occurring generally more frequently, in situations where the domain controllers are reachable.
Best Answer
Lanman strict name checking can block you.
Its a security added in the OS that make the server listen only to its own DNS name (no alias)
Do the following to disable it:
In your registry editor, go to
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters. Right-click and add the DWORD entry “DisableStrictNameChecking” and set the value to 1.
Right-click again and add the DWORD entry “DnsOnWire” with a value of 1.
Restart the server.