First post….
Brief description:
We have two buildings connected via two devices owned by our isp. It’s not a vpn, the device basically just forwards all traffic from one building to another. Both buildings are on different subnets and our firewall/vpn device at our main building routes traffic. No changes have been made to the firewall/vpn device.
I have recently implemented a new AD domain using a new 2003 R2 SP2 server. along with both 2003 and 2000 member servers. I also implemented a new Exchange 2007 server on Windows Server 2003R2x64. All clients run 2000 Pro SP4 or XP Pro SP2.
Problem Description:
Almost two weeks after implementation users in the remote site could no longer access data on the primary domain controller. to my knowledge no changes were made to any security/network/file share settings.
I can ping the pdc from the remote subnet using either it’s name or ip address, nslookup does not pinpoint any dns issues. I can see the shares using \\servername and I can map drives no problem. Logion scripts run without error as well.
however, if I try to copy a file from the pdc to the workstation it starts and then almost immediately fails with the error:”The specified network name is no longer available”.
If I try to open a file (spreadsheet, pdf, word doc, etc.) I get the following error: “file cannot be access. The file may be read-only, you may be accessing a read-only location, or the server the file is on may not be responding”.
Also, on the win 2000 clients the mapped drives show up as disconnect and if you leave windows explorer open they sometimes change the name from the format folder name on server (shared on pdc (S:)) to just “Network folder’ (Network Folder (S:)) and when clicked respond with the message: “The local device name is already in use, the connection has not been restored”. Clicking ‘ok’ and trying again will usually result in the shared data being displayed but nobody can access it, read from, copy from, or save to the shared drives.
This problem is only with our Domain Controller. If I setup test shares on other member servers, even 2003 R2 member servers they can be mapped, read, copied from, saved to, and files can be opened.
I must admit I am baffled. I have checked security on the shared folders and I have full access. The firewall service on the DC is turned off.
Does anyone have any idea what could cause such a problem. The local subnet in the building where the server is located does not have any issues.
At first I thought it might be an issue with the device the allows the data to go from one building to the other but after further testing and seeing the symptoms I have posted here I’m not so sure. It points to an issue with only the PDC and only from traffic coming from the remote subnet but I don’t know where else to turn now.
I do not have a backup domain controller at the remote site…do you think this would help?
One more piece of info I gathered in my testing. If I create a vpn in windows networking on the client and connect to our server using this vpn client they can then access the shares and data ok, disconnect the vpn and the problem comes back. I don’t really want to buy hardware devices to create a vpn tunnel between buildings as the configuration did work up until last week?
Any insight would be much appreciated.