Network access denied for DFS folder only on share's host machine

Question

I have an Active Directory DFS for a network with several folders that any of the machines on the network have no problem accessing accept for the machine that the shares are hosted on. What's even stranger is that the machine that hosts the shares has no problem accessing its own shares by a share's UNC path, it's only when trying to access them through the DFS that it gives an error that says "Network access is denied." Makes no sense and kinda defeats the purpose of a DFS. What could cause this?

Answer 1

Hello @Scott W

It seems like a FQDN/UNC resolution issue. Please try the next to fix it:

So, you have to enable FQDN DFS open a Powershell and do :

1) Obtain the list of all name spaces

Get-DfsnRoot - ComputerName YOURSERVERNAME |Where type -NotMatch "Standalone"  

2) remove all DFS name spaces

Remove-DfsnRootTarget -TargetPath OBTAINEDInStep1  

3) enable the FQDN

Set-DfsnServerConfiguration -ComputerName YOURSERVERNAME -UseFqdn $true  

4) Restart the DFS service:

Stop-Service dfs  
Start-Service dfs  

Hope this helps with your query,

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Answer 2

Hello.

Look in the DFS management under Namespace and it should display the Namespace FQDN. Have you tried accessing it via the namespace FQDN?

\domain.local\DFS

Miguel Fra
https://www.falconitservices.com

Answer 3

Hello,

From the DFS MMC take folder1 off-line as if doing maintenance and see if you can access the share using the DFS namespace. Then repeat the process with folder1 on-line and folder 2 off-line. If you can access the share in both cases, then DFS is managing both shares properly and both are accessible from the DFS namespace.

What may be happening is that you are trying to access the DFS root folder on the DFS server instead of the actual shared folder. This is why you don't have permission.

Cheers,

Miguel Fra
http://www.falconitservices.com