Jeff-
It's hard to say what is going on here. Group Policy uses whatever site information is 
cached on the workstation to determine which site-linked GPOs to process. In other 
words, the issue is that when this machine connects to the corp. network, it is not 
following the normal site affinity process to locate a DC to authenticate with. Given 
the random nature of what you're seeing, I suspect this means that the workstation's 
subnet is not being correctly associated with a site, and so its querying any 
available DC. 
 
I would check the registry under 
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters\DynamicSiteName to see what 
site is being cached there after you VPN into the network.  This could be a timing 
issue where the site information is not correctly populated on the workstation by the 
time GPO processing cycle kicks off. 
 
-----Original Message----- 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Jeff Salisbury 
Sent: Fri 5/28/2004 2:51 PM 
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' 
Cc: 
Subject: [ActiveDir] Group Policy at the Site Level With Remote VPN Users - Wrong Site 
Applied



        We have our logon scripts in GPOs tied to AD Sites in our Win2K domain, with 
each site having its own GPO that calls a script tailored to the locally available 
file shares. This has worked exceedingly well, until...
        
        Based on some great input from another list reader we started testing a 
feature in the Cisco VPN Client that forces a user to log off his/her system as soon 
as the VPN is established. When the user logs back on to the machine then she/he is 
authenticating with the domain. We want this functionality so that the cached copy of 
the user's password is updated if he/she changed it recently, and so that the user's 
logon script runs to map drives, check A-V signatures, etc.
        
        When I tried this from my home network (192.168.2.0/24) I connected to our 
corporate network in L.A. (Compton) and my notebook was assigned an IP address from 
the L.A. facility's internal network (172.16.0.0/21), which is the IP subnet 
associated with the Compton-Site in AD. After the logoff, I would have expected the 
Compton-Site logon script to run and map my drives. Instead, Group Policy was applied 
from a domain controller in Shanghai China (172.16.56.0/22) and my drives were mapped 
by their logon script to their servers. My colleague had a similar experience, except 
that he received policy from and was mapped to drives in the Singapore AD Site 
(172.16.48.0/22).
        
        I ran GPResult to see if I could figure out what was happening:
        
        RSOP results for BELKIN\<my user name> on <my machine name> : Logging Mode
        ------------------------------------------------------------
        
        OS Type:                     Microsoft Windows XP Professional
        OS Configuration:            Member Workstation
        OS Version:                  5.1.2600
        Domain Name:                 BELKIN
        Domain Type:                 Windows 2000
        Site Name:                   compton-site  <-- This is what I expected
        Roaming Profile:
        Local Profile:               C:\Documents and Settings\<my user name>
        Connected over a slow link?: No
        
        
        COMPUTER SETTINGS
        ------------------
            CN=<my machine name>,OU=Notebooks,OU=Compton,OU=US,OU=NA,DC=belkin,DC=com
            Last time Group Policy was applied: 5/27/2004 at 9:18:37 PM
            Group Policy was applied from:      shanghai.belkin.com  <-- This DC is in 
the Shanghai China Site!
            Group Policy slow link threshold:   500 kbps
        
            Applied Group Policy Objects
            -----------------------------
                Default Domain Policy
                Local Group Policy
        
            The following GPOs were not applied because they were filtered out
            -------------------------------------------------------------------
                Shanghai Site Logon Scripts    <- There are not logon scripts tied to 
the computer
                    Filtering:  Not Applied (Empty)
        
            The computer is a part of the following security groups:
            --------------------------------------------------------
            <SNIP>
        
        USER SETTINGS
        --------------
            CN=<my user name>,OU=Information 
Services,OU=Compton,OU=US,OU=NA,DC=belkin,DC=com
            Last time Group Policy was applied: 5/27/2004 at 9:20:20 PM
            Group Policy was applied from:      shanghai.belkin.com  <-- This DC is in 
the Shanghai China Site!
            Group Policy slow link threshold:   500 kbps
        
            Applied Group Policy Objects
            -----------------------------
                Default Domain Policy
                Shanghai Site Logon Scripts   <- Here is what mapped the drives to 
Shanghai servers
        
            The following GPOs were not applied because they were filtered out
            -------------------------------------------------------------------
                Local Group Policy
                    Filtering:  Not Applied (Empty)
        
            The user is a part of the following security groups:
            ----------------------------------------------------
              <SNIP>
        
        I looked through Jeremy Moskowitz's great book (Group Policy, Profiles, and 
Intellimirror) and on his web site (www.gpanswers.com), but I can't find any reference 
to this mystery. My understanding is that the notebook's IP address would determine 
what Site's GP is applied. If the internal address assigned by VPN is used, then it 
should apply the Compton-Site policy. It looks like it DID determine that I was in the 
Compton site, but went off and pulled/applied GP from a different site. I have 
verified that the sites in AD have the correct subnets assigned to them, with no 
overlap.
        
        Has anyone else seen this happen or see what I am missing? Thanks!
        
        Jeff Salisbury
        Network Infrastructure and Security Manager
        
        Belkin Corporation
        Information Services
        310 604-2061
        310 604-2022 fax
        www.belkin.com
        
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