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3.2.5.7 Receiving a RopPublicFolderIsGhosted ROP Request

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If the operation is issued against a private mailbox message store, the server MUST return FALSE in the IsGhosted field of the response. In this case, no replication state data is returned. If the public folder specified by the FolderId field cannot be found in the public folder container (either public folder database or public folder mailbox), the server MUST fail the operation with 0x8004010F (ecNotFound) in the ReturnValue field.

Each public folder has associated configuration information, including which servers are configured to actually hold content of the folder.<40> This specific configuration indicates one of several potential states for each replica server. An "Active" replica contains content and is expected to serve that content to clients. Servers in other replica states do not serve content to clients. These other replica states are implementation-specific, but possible definitions are as follows:

  • An "Inactive" replica contains content, but is not going to serve that content to clients.

  • A "Deleted" replica once contained content and presently does not.

Each server in the organization's network has a tangible communication cost due to the following implementation-dependent factors: network hardware costs, the cost of the network connectors (various WAN versus LAN costs, and so forth), and the perceived cost of using the network for certain applications, and so on.

The server retrieves the current replica information for the specific public folder specified by the FolderId field. This replica information is a list, each entry consisting of at least a server identifier and the replication state (Active, Inactive, Deleted) for this folder on that server. The server obtains the network cost for each server in the list, if that cost information isn't already in the list. The source used to determine these network costs can be whatever configuration source the server finds most appropriate.<41> The network cost values are expressed relative to the server, not the client making the request.

The server MUST return TRUE in the IsGhosted field if the queried server is not listed as an active replica of the folder. The value of the IsGhosted field MUST be FALSE if the queried server is listed as an active replica of the folder. If the client issues this operation against the IPM subtree or the non-IPM subtree public folders, the value of the IsGhosted field MUST be FALSE.

The server removes entries from the list which are not active replicas. The server can remove entries from the list which, at its discretion, it determines to be too expensive for the client to reach. The algorithm used to determine the servers that are too expensive is implementation-defined.<42> The server can remove entries if another configuration indicates that the client be prohibited from attempting a connection, if such configuration exists. If the resulting trimmed list is empty, the operation MUST be failed with a ReturnValue of 0x00000469. A client MUST interpret this ReturnValue value as implying an IsGhosted value of TRUE.

The server sorts the list according to the cost information, least expensive items sorting to the front of the list. Servers with the same cost can appear in any order, but the server SHOULD ensure that the same list values sort to the same order every time.

The server counts the number of entries at the front of the list that all have the same cost value. The resultant value will be the number of cheapest, equally costed servers (the CheapServersCount return value).

The current total list length constitutes the ServersCount return value. The list contents of server identifiers constitute the value of the Servers field. The server MUST map whatever identifier moniker for each server it has into an ESSDN string to return to the client.

The following specific error codes apply to this ROP. Other possible error codes are specified in [MS-OXCDATA] section 2.4.

Name

Value

Meaning

ecNone

0x00000000

Success.

ecNoReplicaAvailable

0x00000469

There are no active replicas for the folder OR the only available replicas have been deemed "too expensive" to reach or are otherwise deemed "unavailable" by the server implementation.

ecNotFound

0x8004010F

The FID could not be found in the public folder container.