Migrating your DFS Namespaces

Here is a screenshot of the Public namespace within contoso.com:

Step1 - Exporting a Namespace:
The command to export the namespace is “dfsutil /root:\\domain.com\rootname /export:exportedroot.txt /verbose

As you can see, I exported my domain DFS root named “public” to a file named “publicroot.txt”. My root happens to contain 3 folders, named “accounting”, “utilities”, and “documentation”. “Accounting” has two folder targets, and “utilities” and “documentation” each have a single folder target. All target file servers, FS1 and FS2, are in the Contoso.com domain.
The publicroot.txt file contains:

   
   
   
       
       
   
   
       
   
   
       
   

There, that was easy enough! Now that the root has been exported, some edits to this data is required before import.
Step 2 – Editing the configuration file
First off, you see that the “root name” value is “\\CONTOSO\Public”. Because the root configuration needs to be imported into the Fabrikam domain, this must be manually modified. The modified portion of the namespace file will look like this:

FABRIKAM\Public" State="1" Timeout="300" Attributes="64" >
The remainder of the file will remain untouched, for reasons which will be discussed below. This file should be saved (I named it publicrootmodified.txt)
Step 3 – Create the new namespace in the new environment/domain
Before a DFS configuration file can be imported, the target namespace must be manually created—DFSUTIL won’t create the root for you.
The command to import the configuration is as follows:
dfsutil /root:\\domain.com\rootname /import: publicrootmodified.txt /set /verbose
NOTE! The import process will overwrite any DFS configurations in the target namespace. Please ensure you enter the path of a root you are prepared to replace.
If you try an import without first creating the DFS root, you will get the following error:

Likewise, attempting to import the configuration file before changing the “Root Name” value within it to match the namespace will result in the error:

A successful import will appear as follows:

The new DFS namespace in the fabrikam domain: