Description of FRS Entries in the Registry

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

SUMMARY

The File Replication service (FRS) is a multi-threaded, multi-master replication engine that replaces the LMREPL (LanMan Replication) service in the 3.x/4.0 versions of Microsoft Windows NT. Windows 2000 domain controllers and servers use FRS to replicate system policy and login scripts for Windows 2000 and down-level clients.

FRS can also replicate content between Windows 2000 servers hosting the same fault-tolerant Distributed File System (DFS) roots or child node replicas.

This article describes the registry entries for FRS.

MORE INFORMATION

The following entries are located in the Hkey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters section of the registry:

• Debug Log Severity (REG_DWORD): 0 minimum, 5 maximum, 4 default



• Debug Log File (REG_DWORD): 0 minimum, no maximum, 5 default



• Debug Maximum Log Messages (REG_DWORD): no minimum, no maximum, 10000 default



• DS Polling Short Interval in Minutes (REG_DWORD): 1 minute minimum, no maximum, 5 minutes for domain controllers, 5 minutes for member servers default



• DS Polling Long Interval in Minutes (REG_DWORD): 1 minute minimum, no maximum, 5 minutes for domain controllers, 60 minutes for member servers default



• Staging Space Limit in KB (REG_DWORD): no minimum, no maximum, a5000h or 660 MB default



• Working Directory (REG_DWORD): n/a minimum, n/a maximum, %SystemRoot%\Ntfrs default

Detailed Description of FRS Registry Entries

• Debug Log Severity: Controls the verbosity level of the Ntfrs_000x.log files in the %SystemRoot%\Debug folder. Severity levels are assigned to different debug print statements in the code. When set to 0, minimal logging occurs. Level 5 is the most verbose setting. Higher settings are inclusive.
  
  Use lower numbers for best performance or higher numbers to obtain the detail needed to troubleshoot replication problems.



• Debug Log File: the number of active log files that record FRS service transactions and events. Logs are written on a first-in-first-out (FIFO) basis with the highest number containing the most recent events. Logs one through "Debug Log Files" are created in sequential order. Once Debug Maximum Log messages are written to the last log (Nftrs_0005.log), the lowest log Ntfrs_0001 is deleted and the version number for the remaining logs gets decremented.
  
  Use higher numbers to keep log detail on hand for longer periods of time. Use lower numbers to minimize disk space requirements.



• Debug Maximum Log Messages: The number of lines stored in a single Ntfrs_000x.log debug log file. 10,000 entries uses between 1-2 MB of space on the disk.



• DS Polling Short Interval in Minutes: The interval with which FRS polls the Active Directory at service startup or after configuration changes. FRS performs eight short polling intervals and then switches to long polling intervals if not interrupted by configuration changes that cause the short polling sequence to start over.



• DS Polling Long Interval in Minutes The interval with which FRS polls the Active Directory for configuration changes after eight short polling intervals have finished without interruption. FRS performs eight short polling intervals and then switches to long polling intervals if not interrupted by configuration changes. Configuration changes cause the short polling sequence to reset.



• Staging Space Limit in KB: The maximum amount of disk space to allocate to files held on disk until retrieved by all downstream replication partners. This should be less than the amount of free disk space. If set to large numbers, staging space may consume all available drive space if downstream replication partners do not pick up changes because of link failures or operating system problems.



• Working Directory: The location of the Ntfrs.jdb file and associated log files. The Jet database should reside on a partition that uses the version of the NTFS file system included with Windows 2000. Modify this value to use a dedicated drive or partition if performance or free disk space becomes an issue.
  
  For more information about the Jet database and associated log files and their location, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  Q221093 How to Relocate the NTFRS Jet Database and Log Files

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbenv kbtool
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo