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Refresh disconnected shared folder RRS feed

  • Question

  • Recently due a power outage one of the servers here restarted. this server wasn't yet, plugged in to the UPS and it just restarted.

    luckily there was no apparent damage and the server booted just fine. . 

    one of the hard drives on this server, it has six, didn't take well to the power cycle and locked up. it wasn't visible on the disk management and the volume(s) on that drive weren't mounted. and obviously the folder shares that were published from these volumes weren't available on the network.

    the drive was pulled, courtesy of the hot swap capable hard disk cage on the server, and plugged back in. the drive came back alive, disk management saw it just fine and the volumes on the drive were mounted just fine.

    the volumes and the file system were accessible and chkdsk showed no errors but the folder shares weren't weren't available on the network.

    is there a way to re-publish shares in such a state without either manually deleting and publishing them again, or restarting the server?

    even if the volume is part of a mirrored array i can think of plenty of scenarios where the volume may not mount and the shared folders that may be on that volume not published.

    having to restart the server just to restore these shares seems a bit extreme.

    is there a less intrusive method of re-publishing shares in such a scenario?

    thanks.


    Ted S. Antonakis
    Tuesday, June 2, 2009 11:46 AM

Answers

  • Hello Ted,

     

    Thank you for the reply.

     

    How disruptive would restarting the Server service be to clients with open files on the file server?

     

    Any idea where I can get some insight into this?

     

    If we restart the Server service, all the current client connections to the shared files will be disconnected because the Server service is in charge of the network shares.  

     

    If I don’t misunderstanding, what you mean by soft link is the symbolic link. If so, you can use symbolic link in this scenario and it will not cause negative impact. I think that it is a good workaround if you do not want to impact the existing connections.

     

    Just for your reference, I have included a disadvantage of symbolic link in general below.

     

    If a file has multiple symbolic links, the file will not be deleted from the volume until all symbolic links are deleted. This means that if someone accidentally deleted a file that had multiple hard links, the file would not actually be deleted.

     

    Because there is only one physical copy of a file with multiple symbolic links, the symbolic links do not have separate security descriptors. Only the source file has security descriptors. Thus, if you were to change the access permissions of a file using any of its symbolic links, you would actually change the security of the source file and all symbolic links that point to this file would have these security settings.

     

    Hope the information can be helpful.

     


    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
    • Marked as answer by TedSA Friday, June 5, 2009 7:39 PM
    Thursday, June 4, 2009 6:48 AM

All replies

  • Hello Ted,

     

    Thank you for posting here.

     

    From your description, the shared folder doesn't appear after you re-plug  the hot swap hard disk

     

    Based on the research, the configuration of network shares are stored in the following registry key:

     

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares

     

    When the operation system is started, the Server service will read the value of the above registry key and create the corresponding shares. As the drive was not ready, the shares was not created properly.

     

    To regenerate these shares,  you may consider restarting the "Server" service from the Services snap-in. If it does not work, you will need to restart the server to make the Server service take into effect.

     

    Hope it helps.


    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
    Wednesday, June 3, 2009 6:51 AM
  • how disruptive would restarting the Server service be to clients with open files on the file server?

    any idea where i can get some insight into this?

    additionally, what is your take on this scenario:

    Using MKLINK create a softlink in the system drive that points to the folder that is to be published, which would be on a volume on a different physical drive.

    Share to the network the softlink folder.

    The Server service will always find the softlink when the server boots.

    The softlink will work when the disconnected volume comes back online without additional intervention. at least that is what preliminary tests have shown so far.

    can you see any negatives with such a configuration?
    Ted S. Antonakis
    Wednesday, June 3, 2009 10:21 AM
  • Hello Ted,

     

    Thank you for the reply.

     

    How disruptive would restarting the Server service be to clients with open files on the file server?

     

    Any idea where I can get some insight into this?

     

    If we restart the Server service, all the current client connections to the shared files will be disconnected because the Server service is in charge of the network shares.  

     

    If I don’t misunderstanding, what you mean by soft link is the symbolic link. If so, you can use symbolic link in this scenario and it will not cause negative impact. I think that it is a good workaround if you do not want to impact the existing connections.

     

    Just for your reference, I have included a disadvantage of symbolic link in general below.

     

    If a file has multiple symbolic links, the file will not be deleted from the volume until all symbolic links are deleted. This means that if someone accidentally deleted a file that had multiple hard links, the file would not actually be deleted.

     

    Because there is only one physical copy of a file with multiple symbolic links, the symbolic links do not have separate security descriptors. Only the source file has security descriptors. Thus, if you were to change the access permissions of a file using any of its symbolic links, you would actually change the security of the source file and all symbolic links that point to this file would have these security settings.

     

    Hope the information can be helpful.

     


    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
    • Marked as answer by TedSA Friday, June 5, 2009 7:39 PM
    Thursday, June 4, 2009 6:48 AM
  • Yes, i meant symbolic links by the softlink reference.

    thanks for the "disadvantage of symbolic link" section.

    Since there is only symbolic link in my proposed workaround and it is to a directory that never is deleted or changed in any away it should not be an issue.

    thanks for the feedback.
    Ted S. Antonakis
    Friday, June 5, 2009 7:39 PM
  • Hi Ted,

    I am glad that the information was helpful for you. If you have any other question, please welcome to the TechNet forum again.

    Thanks.
    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
    Monday, June 8, 2009 9:21 AM