Directory replication connectors to other Microsoft Exchange Sites are
permanent relationships and were not designed to be torn down and
re-established on a frequent basis.
When you delete a directory replication connector, you will see a series of
dialog boxes, one stating that the DS/IS Consistency Adjuster should be run
to clear up public folder inconsistencies. This dialog box makes the
assumption that these Sites will not be re-connected in the future. Once
the DS/IS Consistency Checker has been run on each of the affected Sites
(each Site involved in the Site tear-down), all public folders that exist
in the hierarchy are now homed to each of these individual Sites. This is
done to provide transparency to the users of these public folders after the
Site replication has been torn down. In other words, if a user in Site1 had
access to a public folder that existed in Site2, DS/IS ensures that this
same user will still have access to the public folder and its contents
after the Site has been torn down. The DS/IS Consistency Checker also
ensures that the Access Control Lists (ACLs) are purged of any invalid
entries. This process cleanses the folders permissions list of users that
existed in the Site that was just disconnected. All of the above is by
product design.
The problem arises when these two Sites are re-connected, in other words,
you create a directory replication connector between the two Sites that
were previously disconnected. Since DS/IS re-homed the public folders to
each of the individual Sites after Site tear-down, when the Sites are
reconnected and the public folder hierarchy is replicated, a conflict
arises because a folder exists in each Site that has the same folder id
(FID) yet claims to be homed in two different places. This conflict is
resolved by homing the public folder to the Site that has the latest
modification to a public folder property. This process could have the
following undesired affects:
- A public folder which was originally created in Site1 when these
Sites were connected via directory replication, could be now homed in
Site2 after a Site tear-down, DS/IS, and the re-connection of the Sites
has taken place.
- The original owner of the public folder might no longer have any
rights to the public folder if it was re-homed to a different Site after
a Site tear-down, DS/IS, and re-connection of the Sites has occurred.
- Users who were assigned permissions to the public folder in one Site
might no longer have rights after a Site tear-down, DS/IS, and re-
connection of the Sites has occurred.
There is no way to reverse these affects once they have taken place. The
public folders must be manually moved back to their original home Servers,
using a Personal Folder (PST), and the permissions re-established to the
public folders.