Migrating from DFSR to Resilio Connect

Resilio Connect is a good alternative to DFSR. Here you can see the comparison chart.

Migrating from DFSR to Resilio Connect is done in a few steps:

1) Prepare a proper Agent and/or Job Profile with optimal parameters for your specific use case in advance. 

2) Add the Resilio folder to the DFSR exception list and, optional, as will be seen below -  pause the replication group which is going to be migrated.

3) Create a Resilio job that will take over and continue synchronizing the distributed folders.

 

Step1

Resilio Connect is flexible enough to cover many use cases and offers different parameters for flexibility. 

Create a new Agent profile, and give it a name, for example, "Replace DFSR." It will hold the parameters discussed below.  

Check the box in the preset menu labeled Optimize for DFSR replacement. You may notice other options become enabled this is expected. 

 

Save this profile. You might need to add some more parameters for other use cases mentioned below.

 

Optional: add/edit these parameters depending on the specific case or requirements: 

If you need to sync NTFS permissions

Create a Job Profile and set "Synchronize NTFS permissions" as "Sync full ACL" if necessary. Ensure that permissions are synced on both ends (otherwise, Agents may pick which perms to deliver randomly)
• Important: "In order to Synchronize NTFS permissions all participating Agents in the Job must be involved in the same domain or have a trust relationship established between multiple domains"

For NTFS Permissions to work correctly, the Resilio Connect agent requires an active directory service account to run under. This account needs to have full control over the folders it is syncing along with ACL Read Write and Modify permissions.

1. To set this account up please navigate to your services control panel on your windows server. (services.msc)
2. Select the Resilio Connect Agent service.
   1. Open Properties and select the Log On Tab
   2. Click This account and Browse
   3. Make sure that under locations Entire directory or the active directory domain is selected.
   4. type the name of your account and click Check Names
   5. Enter the account's password and apply
   6. Restart the Resilio Connect Agent Service

Common Errors during this process

1. If the agent will not 
   1. The service account password was typed incorrectly
   2. A service account is not an administrator on the server
   3. Service account does not have the ability or active directory permissions for impersonation

If you have over 5 million files in the folder

Apply preset "Over 10M of files" in the Agent Profile.

 

Step 2

DFS Replication must be paused or disabled before moving further.

There are two ways to pause DFS Replication on your server,

1. Stop the DFS Replication Service in the services control panel and set the service to manual.
2. Using the DFS Management tool, pause the replication group that you will switch to Resilio Connect.  

 

Step 3

Create a Synchronization job. It's highly advisable to do it during low activity hours so that the agents can complete the initial index of all the files. 

1. Under the jobs tab click on Configure Job, then select "Create a new Job."
   1. 
2. Select Synchronization from the list and click next.
3. Provide a new name for the workflow on the details tab.
4. The Agents tab
   1. Check the box next to the agents that will be included in this job.
   2. Under the Path Column, click on the blue text; this will open a window to select the path location for your data. Do this for all servers in your DFS Replication pool.
5. The reference Agents Tab is used to choose the primary server for NTFS permissions this is used only for the first sync.
6. Settings Tab Is used to select the job priority if needed and the job profile if it is not the default.
   1. Job's Profile Box if a separate job profile was created for the DFS Replication servers in the drop-down box next to the select profile message, please select the profile that correlates to your DFS Replication use case. 
7. Notification Tab, please skip this section for now unless you have notification options already configured.
8. Save the DFS Replication job.

It's expected that some file errors will pop up. The most likely issues are errors about permissions to access files, files busy or locked, errors about filename conflicts, and synchronization timeout errors. 

Once the job shows a matching number of files for all Agents in Job runs -> (job run name) -> Agents -> Files column - it is ready to handle new file changes.