Hello all. I'm barely new to Windows Servers administration so please bear with me. We have two domain controllers, A and B, configured for replication. How can I tell if this is a one/two way replication? How can I determine what's being replicated? I see B server contains AD objects from A. Is the home folder contents; eg, folders and files, are also replicated? or is it just the user account profile/attributes replicated? Or, if one-way, does the subscriber(B?) reads contents in the users home directory/files? Any advice or suggestion you can provide for the above question is much appreciated. Thanks! jav

Hi Jav, To answer your questions: 1. AD replication is two ways. Settings setup a one DC (Domain Controller) such as create a group policy will be replicated to others. 2. Home folder will not be replicated unless you setup a replication (by DFS for example) It is a big story about "how Active Directory works". Here is a technical article about the theory. Active Directory Replication Topology Technical Reference http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755326(WS.10).aspx

Thanks Shaon. I understand there's tons of information on the topic and it's definitely something one can not explain into a single phrase or two. I briefly scan through documentations and if I understand it, the replication applies only to AD objects? regardless whether the server is promoted for other roles? On a related note, would you know what process or event can trigger a read scan in home folders? Would that be the replication process(every 180 minutes default)? I noticed folders were being traversed(read or list contents) while looking at the Security event log. Thanks! jav

Hi Jav AD settings will be replicated between domain controllers to keep the same settings applied to all clients which connected to different DC. For "read scan", if you mean a refresh, it does not related to repication. Network folder will not be refreshed if you keep it that way, and it will be refreshed by pressing F5 or accessing different folders. If I misunderstood the "read scan" please just correct me.