DC Replication help

microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory

9 Jul 2009 6:59 PM

Gonzo

Hi,

I have 3 DC on our LAN, and one on a remote site with only a 2mb link for DR
only. The servers are Windows 2003 and DNS is integrated.

What should my replication settings be and where can I check them? I looked
in AD Sites and Services and created a new site called "offsite" and put the
offsite DC there. I have also created all our subnets and set them to only
use the 3 DC's on our LAN.

Problem is I deleted a server on one of the local LAN DC's as I had to
rebuild it and it was still in the computers OU, it said it had been added
and I rebooted it and logged it onto the domain. Then a little later I
found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer sowing in the computers
OU, it is like one of the other DC's overwrote this or something?

Please help.

9 Jul 2009 7:47 PM

Florian Frommherz [MVP]

Howdie!

Gonzo schrieb:

> I have 3 DC on our LAN, and one on a remote site with only a 2mb link
> for DR only. The servers are Windows 2003 and DNS is integrated.
>
> What should my replication settings be and where can I check them? I
> looked in AD Sites and Services and created a new site called "offsite"
> and put the offsite DC there. I have also created all our subnets and
> set them to only use the 3 DC's on our LAN.

Good - that is how you should do that, actually. You create the sites
according to the physical structure and put the DCs into the sites then.
You can check replication with the repadmin tool. "repadmin /showrepl"
should give you an idea what NCs are replicated with what other DCs.
Also check the event log regularly. If anything problematic happens, you
can find it there. Broken replication will result in a few eventlog entries.

DCDiag and NETDiag are two dcommand like tools you can use to check
overall healthy of the DCs.

> Problem is I deleted a server on one of the local LAN DC's as I had to
> rebuild it and it was still in the computers OU, it said it had been
> added and I rebooted it and logged it onto the domain. Then a little
> later I found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer sowing in
> the computers OU, it is like one of the other DC's overwrote this or
> something?

That description is a little unclear to me. You had a member server
(just a server that was joined to the domain) which had a computer
account in the "Computers" container. Then you flattended the machine
and reinstalled it and afterwards deleted the computer account in AD?
After that you re-joined the machine to AD again?

Cheers,
Florian

--
Microsoft MVP - Group Policy
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10 Jul 2009 6:13 AM

Meinolf Weber [MVP-DS]

Hello Gonzo,

Did you demote the DC before rebuilding it? Then it will automatically be
moved to the computers container, that's normal. So you didn't delete it
then from there before rebuilding the server?

If you deleted it and directly promote a new server with the same name, which
is done on another DC then the DC where the "old" one was deleted, this can
belong to replication because 2 DCs have now information about 2 DCs with
the same name. One info is 'delete' and the other one is 'create'. I have
seen this before, so even the new one is joined to the domain correct, it
will be deleted because of the replication information from the other DC
which states 'delete' that name.

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

Show quoteHide quote

> Hi,
>
> I have 3 DC on our LAN, and one on a remote site with only a 2mb link
> for DR only. The servers are Windows 2003 and DNS is integrated.
>
> What should my replication settings be and where can I check them? I
> looked in AD Sites and Services and created a new site called
> "offsite" and put the offsite DC there. I have also created all our
> subnets and set them to only use the 3 DC's on our LAN.
>
> Problem is I deleted a server on one of the local LAN DC's as I had to
> rebuild it and it was still in the computers OU, it said it had been
> added and I rebooted it and logged it onto the domain. Then a little
> later I found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer sowing in
> the computers OU, it is like one of the other DC's overwrote this or
> something?
>
> Please help.
>

10 Jul 2009 7:23 AM

Gonzo

Sorry Meinolf, I didn't mean a deleting a DC it was a member server - my
explaination was confusing.

I always demote a DC first using the dcpromo tool then seize/transfer the
FSMO roles and also use the Metabase cleanup tool for good measure.

Show quoteHide quote

"Meinolf Weber [MVP-DS]" <meiweb(nospam)@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:ff16fb66296338cbcf4d7c336c49@msnews.microsoft.com...
> Hello Gonzo,
>
> Did you demote the DC before rebuilding it? Then it will automatically be
> moved to the computers container, that's normal. So you didn't delete it
> then from there before rebuilding the server?
>
> If you deleted it and directly promote a new server with the same name,
> which is done on another DC then the DC where the "old" one was deleted,
> this can belong to replication because 2 DCs have now information about 2
> DCs with the same name. One info is 'delete' and the other one is
> 'create'. I have seen this before, so even the new one is joined to the
> domain correct, it will be deleted because of the replication information
> from the other DC which states 'delete' that name.
>
> Best regards
>
> Meinolf Weber
> Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
> confers no rights.
> ** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
> ** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have 3 DC on our LAN, and one on a remote site with only a 2mb link
>> for DR only. The servers are Windows 2003 and DNS is integrated.
>>
>> What should my replication settings be and where can I check them? I
>> looked in AD Sites and Services and created a new site called
>> "offsite" and put the offsite DC there. I have also created all our
>> subnets and set them to only use the 3 DC's on our LAN.
>>
>> Problem is I deleted a server on one of the local LAN DC's as I had to
>> rebuild it and it was still in the computers OU, it said it had been
>> added and I rebooted it and logged it onto the domain. Then a little
>> later I found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer sowing in
>> the computers OU, it is like one of the other DC's overwrote this or
>> something?
>>
>> Please help.
>>
>
>

10 Jul 2009 7:44 AM

Meinolf Weber [MVP-DS]

Hello Gonzo,

The symptom i described can apply to other domain machines, not only DCs.

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

Show quoteHide quote

> Sorry Meinolf, I didn't mean a deleting a DC it was a member server -
> my explaination was confusing.
>
> I always demote a DC first using the dcpromo tool then seize/transfer
> the FSMO roles and also use the Metabase cleanup tool for good
> measure.
>
> "Meinolf Weber [MVP-DS]" <meiweb(nospam)@gmx.de> wrote in message
> news:ff16fb66296338cbcf4d7c336c49@msnews.microsoft.com...
>
>> Hello Gonzo,
>>
>> Did you demote the DC before rebuilding it? Then it will
>> automatically be moved to the computers container, that's normal. So
>> you didn't delete it then from there before rebuilding the server?
>>
>> If you deleted it and directly promote a new server with the same
>> name, which is done on another DC then the DC where the "old" one was
>> deleted, this can belong to replication because 2 DCs have now
>> information about 2 DCs with the same name. One info is 'delete' and
>> the other one is 'create'. I have seen this before, so even the new
>> one is joined to the domain correct, it will be deleted because of
>> the replication information from the other DC which states 'delete'
>> that name.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> Meinolf Weber
>> Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
>> confers no rights.
>> ** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
>> ** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have 3 DC on our LAN, and one on a remote site with only a 2mb
>>> link for DR only. The servers are Windows 2003 and DNS is
>>> integrated.
>>>
>>> What should my replication settings be and where can I check them?
>>> I looked in AD Sites and Services and created a new site called
>>> "offsite" and put the offsite DC there. I have also created all our
>>> subnets and set them to only use the 3 DC's on our LAN.
>>>
>>> Problem is I deleted a server on one of the local LAN DC's as I had
>>> to rebuild it and it was still in the computers OU, it said it had
>>> been added and I rebooted it and logged it onto the domain. Then a
>>> little later I found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer
>>> sowing in the computers OU, it is like one of the other DC's
>>> overwrote this or something?
>>>
>>> Please help.
>>>

10 Jul 2009 7:51 AM

Ace Fekay [Microsoft Certified Trainer]

Show quote Hide quote

"Gonzo" <andrewwh***@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:OazZEdMAKHA.1340@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> I have 3 DC on our LAN, and one on a remote site with only a 2mb link for DR
> only. The servers are Windows 2003 and DNS is integrated.
>
> What should my replication settings be and where can I check them? I looked
> in AD Sites and Services and created a new site called "offsite" and put the
> offsite DC there. I have also created all our subnets and set them to only
> use the 3 DC's on our LAN.
>
> Problem is I deleted a server on one of the local LAN DC's as I had to
> rebuild it and it was still in the computers OU, it said it had been added
> and I rebooted it and logged it onto the domain. Then a little later I
> found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer sowing in the computers
> OU, it is like one of the other DC's overwrote this or something?
>
> Please help.
>

I'm not exactly following the problem. If you had demoted a DC, the computer becomes a member server, and the machine account gets moved to the Computers Container (not an OU).

If you had rebuild the machine, meaning that you had reinstalled the operating system, the machine account will still exist in the Computers container. If you kept the same name for the machine, and re-joined it back to the domain, it will refresh the machine account. If you promote it back into the domain, the machine account would move and should now show up in the Default Domain Controllers OU.

After you promoted it (assuming that's what you meant), did it show up in the Default Domain Controllers OU?

So I'm not sure what you mean by the following question -
"Then a little later I found it had dropped off the domain and is no longer sowing in the computers OU, it is like one of the other DC's overwrote this or something?"

Was it re-promoted?

Are any of the DCs multihomed (more than one NIC and/or IP)?

--
Ace

This posting is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Please reply back to the newsgroup/forum to benefit from collaboration among responding engineers, as well as to help others benefit from your resolution.

Ace Fekay, MCT, MCSE 2003 & 2000, MCSA 2003 & 2000, MCSA Messaging
Microsoft Certified Trainer
ace***@mvps.RemoveThisPart.org
http://twitter.com/acefekay

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