DFS Replication State Codes

Sometimes it is really important to know health status of all replication groups. If there is any problem in the DFS replication, this is the first step to perform to check the state of replication groups of each server.

Lets say, you have two file servers in your office, FS001 and FS002 and has many DFS replication groups in your DFS management. On a particular group, files and folders are replication from FS001 to FS002, but not replicating from FS002 to FS001. It seems that there is some problem with the replication from FS002 to FS001. Best way is to run the below mentioned command on both servers.

Get-WmiObject -Namespace "root\microsoftdfs" -Class dfsrreplicatedfolderinfo -ComputerName "YourServerName" | Select-Object -Property PSComputerName, Replicationgroupname, Replicatedfoldername, State

(Don't use quotes when you put your server name, just type server name like FS001.)

This command will give you information about all replication groups with their folder names and their state.

State codes are as follow:
0: Uninitialized
1: Initialized
2: Initial Sync
3: Auto Recovery
4: Normal
5: In Error

For every administrator, it is important to keep their replication groups in state 4. If any replication group is in state 2 or 3, please wait and see after some time if backlogs are decreasing or not and changes the state to 4. If it doesn't happen, it simply means that there is something wrong with the replication group and it requires some troubleshooting to fix it. If it is state 5, it need to be fixed.

You can create a power shell script which will sent you this information every day in morning or when ever you want.

I have already created a script and scheduled it for me which sent me an email all replication groups which has state 2, 3 and 5 of all servers every alternate day. If you need the script please let me know.