Ntfrsutl Overview

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Tool Location

The Ntfrsutl command-line tool is included when you install Windows Server 2003 Support Tools from the product CD or from the Microsoft Download Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=100114). For more information about how to install Windows Support Tools from the product CD, see Install Windows Support Tools (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=62270).

Ntfrsutl.exe: File Replication Utility

This command-line tool dumps the internal tables, thread and memory information for the NT File Replication Service (NTFRS). It runs against local and remote servers.

The recovery setting for NTFRS in Service Control Manager (SCM) can be critical to locating and keeping important log events on the computer. This tool provides a convenient method of reviewing those settings.

Corresponding UI

There is no corresponding user interface for this tool.

Concepts

The File Replication Service (FRS) is a key element of the Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) technologies, and was first introduced in Windows 2000. It is used by Active directory for SYSVOL replication, and by DFS for automatic replication of content between 'alternate targets'.

NTFRS creates text-based log files in the Systemroot\debug folder for troubleshooting NTFRS replication problems. NTFRS builds two types of text-based log files.

  • The Ntfrsapi.log file contains events that take place during promotion and demotion of a server, namely, the creation of the NTFRS registry keys.

  • The Ntfrs_nnnn.log debug log files store transaction and event details in the Ntfrs_nnnn.log through Ntfrs_0005.log files. The most recent NTFRS transactions and events are written to the log with the highest version number in existence at the time.

The Registry entries that control NTFRS logging reside in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ntfrs\Parameters registry key.

The number of log files residing in the Debug folder is determined by the Debug Log File entry. Once the log entries are written (determined by the Debug Maximum Log Messages registry entry) , a new log file, Ntfrs_000n-1.log is created. Once the correct number of logs is created (determined by the Debug Log File registry entry), the lowest-version log file is deleted and the remaining log file names are decremented by 1 to make room for a new log file.

System Requirements

To access the internal NTFRS information, the user needs specified levels of access to the following registry keys on the target server.

       HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ntfrs\Parameters\
Access Checks\

Get Internal Information

Full control

Get Ds Polling Interval

Read

Set Ds Polling Interval

Full Control

File Required

  • Ntfrsutl.exe

See Also

Concepts

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