Can't shut down my first DC

[Neal]

We have two DCs and I thought I had it all worked out. If I wanted to shut
the first one down for any length of time (hardware fix) all I had to do was
to move all the FSMO roles first, then I'd be in the clear.

But noooooo. When I shut down the first, the whole domain fell to pieces.
Couldn't log on to servers etc. Turns out (I think) that it was the fault
of DNS - which was AD integrated and running on the first server. So when
that stopped, it all failed. Second DC is our backup DNS - and I thought it
would fail over to this.

Is there a way round this?

Thanks, Neal.

 

[Guest]

For redundency, both DCs need to be Global Catalog servers, and they should both point to themselves first, and each other second, for DNS.

Furthermore, *all* clients should point to both DNS servers for DNS. This way, everything can run with or without one of the DCs.

Implement this, and along with your current strategy, you should be fine...

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Paul.
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[Neal]

Thanks again for your help.

I guess my biggest gripe is that if the first domain controller (with the
FSMO) roles fails unexpectedly then there's a lot of work to be done at a
technical level.

I really feel there's a need for a 'one click' button buried somewhere deep
within a DC that says "Take all FSMO roles if role holder is offline"

Thanks, Neal

For redundency, both DCs need to be Global Catalog servers, and they

should both point to themselves first, and each other second, for DNS.

Furthermore, *all* clients should point to both DNS servers for DNS. This

way, everything can run with or without one of the DCs.