AutoSiteCoverage

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters

Description

Determines whether the system can add sites to the coverage area of this domain controller.

Domain controllers "cover," that is, provide services, to the site in which they reside and to other sites listed in the value of SiteCoverage. In addition, when the value of this entry is 1, the system can add sites that do not have domain controllers to this domain controller's coverage area.

The sites added to the domain controller's coverage are stored in memory and a new list is assembled each time the Net Logon service starts. While Net Logon runs, it updates this list at an interval specified by the value of DnsRefreshInterval
.

To determine this extended site coverage, the Net Logon service uses information from the Active Directory. It applies the criteria listed below to determine which domain controller can provide the best service to a non-covered site. By default, all domain controllers are candidates for a non-covered site. However, you use this entry to exclude domain controllers from the selection pool, the system might not be able to select the best domain controller for the site.

The criteria are applied in the order shown and each subsequent criterion is applied only if the candidate domain controllers were equal on all previous criteria.

• Connection cost: The connection to the domain controller is less costly than connections to other domain controllers in the domain;
• Most domain controllers: The site in which the domain controller resides has more domain controllers than other sites;
• Alphabetical order (tie breaker): The name of the site in which the domain controller resides is earlier in the alphabet than the site names of other domain controllers.

Note

This entry is used only when it appears in the registry of a domain controller.

Windows 2000 does not add this entry to the registry. You can add it by editing the registry or by using a program that edits the registry.

Tip

The list of additional sites computed for each domain controller is recorded in Netlogon.log when the value of DBFlag
is at least 0x20. To direct Net Logon to record the process it uses to compute site coverage, set the value of DBFlag to 0x800FFFF.

Related Entries

SiteCoverage

GcSiteCoverage