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

Optionally, FRS can replicate content between Windows 2000 servers hosting the same fault-tolerant DFS roots or child node replicas.

This article describes the replication topology used by FRS for replicating SYSVOL content throughout an enterprise.

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Replication Protocol

FRS uses Remote Procedure Call (RPC) over TCP for inter-site and intra-site replication for DFS content. Although this is well-suited to moving files, SMTP or mail-based replication (MBR) is limited to replication of the schema, configuration, and global catalog naming contexts in Windows 2000.

Unlike Active Directory replication, FRS does not compress replicated content between sites.

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Replication Topology

When replicating files and folders in the SYSVOL tree between Windows 2000 domain controllers, FRS uses the same replication topology and connection objects as the Windows 2000 Active Directory. Replication topology and connection objects are typically built by the Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC) and may also be explicitly added by Windows 2000 administrators using the Active Directory Sites and Services Manager snap-in (Dssite.msc).

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