access to UNC (alias) path

Hi,

I want to replace my fileservers with a new one.
Problem is that i don't want to change the way clients access the
fileserver.

Say that they acess the data like this:
\\oldserver\share

i added an alias on the new server and set the
disablestrictnamechecking regkey.
Now users on W2K, W2K3, XP, ... can acess the data through both
\\newserver\share and \\oldserver\share.

We also have some old NT4 machines left, that also need to access the
fileserver.
"Ping oldserver" resolves (and replies) to the IP of "newserver"
But when i try to access \\oldserver\share from the NT4 machines, i get
an "network path not found".

Can this be solved somehow?

thanks for any hints/tips.

regards,
Rico

> We also have some old NT4 machines left, that also need to access the
> fileserver.
> "Ping oldserver" resolves (and replies) to the IP of "newserver"
> But when i try to access \\oldserver\share from the NT4 machines, i get
> an "network path not found".
>
> Can this be solved somehow?

I suspect not. Though I say that without testing it myself. The issue is
that NT4 relies on NetBIOS. It has no way to turn it off, or to find an
alternate method of communication unless it's configured as a DNS client as
well (it may prefer NetBIOS over DNS though, in some cases).

When you make the registry change above, I believe that it affects DNS name
resolution only. If you add a CNAME record for an existing server, the name
will be resolved properly to the server, but the server is not listening for
the CNAME. The registry change causes the server to not check to see if it
should be listening on behalf of that name, so it responds to the query.

(This is where I'm guessing a little)--> Because the server isn't aware that
it is being called by a different name, it's response will be sent using
it's original name (oldserver in your case). The NT4 client is expecting a
reply from newserver though, so it doesn't match the request with the
response. (I'm guessing again here) I think that the W2K and W2K3 machines
will try and match the request/response by querying DNS to see what the IP
address of the responding server is. If this matches the CNAME (alias) that
the request went out on, then they accept the session.

If you really want to figure it out, sniff the outgoing and incoming packets
going between the two machines. Look for the names that are being passed
back and forth.

If your NT4 machine is not a DNS client, you could try making it one to see
if that helps. You should also disable NetBIOS on your W2K server. You could
then try using FQDNs. Otherwise, you can guess along with me some more

Good luck!
Oliver



>
> thanks for any hints/tips.
>
> regards,
> Rico
>