how to duplicate my production environment in a lab

[Guest]

I've tried using the old nt4 method, (creating a DC for each domain in production,
pulling them offline into the isolated network and then seizing fsmo roles and reconfiguring dns), but i can't get it to work.

is there a document that details the steps ?

 

[Herb Martin]

I've tried using the old nt4 method, (creating a DC for each domain in production,
pulling them offline into the isolated network and then seizing fsmo roles

and reconfiguring dns), but i can't get it to work.

is there a document that details the steps ?

So you goal is a duplicate of your current AD, but
running on separate servers in a lab?

You will need to do the above AND arrange the DNS
at a minimum. You made no mention of the DNS (nor
of the GCs which are important in a multi-domain forest.)

First step would be to setup your DNS correctly.

Also note that each "Domain" copy is now going to have
a lot of "abandoned objects" in the AD -- you will replication
logged errors since there are missing DCs.

NTDSUtil (metadata cleanup) can clear these for you but
they may not be immediately serious. (E.G., you won't be
able to upgrade either 'domain' to Win2000 until you do this.)

 

[ptwilliams]

If you've only few DCs I don't see any reason why you can't image (clone)
the lot of them (obviously without using sysprep) and stick them on a
*completely* separate LAN.


--

Paul Williams
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