Why do clients on Branch Sites insist on accessing SYSVOL on the HQ DC instead of the branches’ RODC

domain-controllersysvolwindows-server-2008windows-server-2008-r2

I'm still scratching my head over this situation…

You see, we have 3 RW DCs in the HQ, and 1 RODC on every branch sites (50+ locations).

During startup, a script will pull in some files from \\example.com\SYSVOL\example.com\Common\Data

But we have been experiencing bandwidth overload. A traffic analysis indicated that lots of clients in the Branch Sites were trying to access the SYSVOL located in the RW DCs.

E.g.: If the RW DCs are 10.1.0.15, 10.2.0.15, and 10.3.0.15, and site 'X' has a subnet of 10.27.0.0/16 (with its RODC at 10.27.0.15), clients at site 'X' seem to insist on accessing \\10.1.0.15\SYSVOL or \\10.2.0.15\SYSVOL or \\10.3.0.15\SYSVOL; they seem to be ignoring the RODC completely.

What is going on here? Where should I start investigating what went wrong?

BTW, I'm already using DFS-R, and replication have been going on successfully; I can put a small 'canary' file on one of the RW DCs, and within minutes all the RODCs will have successfully replicated the 'canary' file.

Additional Information: If I try doing nslookup example.com, I get only the addresses of the RW DCs. None of the RODCs' addresses appear.

Secondary Question: What if I add the addresses of the RODCs manually into the DNS? Will I be casing trouble?

Best Answer

You need to define these sites and subnets in Active Directory Sites and Services and the assign the Read Only Domain Controllers to the specific sites.

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