Change the AD name

[Guest]

Hello everyone,

Not sure if this question has been asked here before (I could not find any
references to it), but I would like to get any help possible on the following
problem that I am facing:

We have an internal AD domain that has the same name as our web presence.
This causes us to maintain 2 DNS servers and has a whole new bag of worms
associated with it. The current domain also has Exchange 2003 running in it
in which we host not only our internal email but also emails for 2 other
sister rcompanies. We would like to rename our internal AD domain to say
something like .local. I have been given to understand that this is not a
possibility in W2k. Our only option it seems is to migrate to W2k3. We will
need to buy new hardware to accomodate this migration.

My problems are:
1. How do I migrate all my existing users from the old domain to the new one
and maintain all their permissions as well as email addresses?
2. If we were to call the new domain as xyz.local. how easy or difficult is
it for us to move our Exchange installation onto the new domain and still
preserve all our existing addresses and domains?

Has anyone out there done such a migration? Are there documents out there
that can help us plan/implement this move.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
RC

 

[Kurt]

Since you will have the opportunity, it might be wise to migrate your
Exchange to a new server (not your DC) first. Migrating a domain with
exchange on the DC is a pain. There are MS white papers and many third party
tutorials on how to do this. You will be creating a new domain on the new
W2K3 server(s) and then using the ADMT to migrate user and computer
accounts. It basically involves creating a two-way trust between the old and
new domains. synching DNS, using an account that has domain admin rights and
permissions in both domains and step-by-stepping your way through the
instructions. Just make sure you do ALL of the preliminaries, all computers
are on-line and available, and make sure you can go back if it all falls
apart.

....kurt

 

[Guest]

Hi Kurt,
Thanks for the reply.
The Exchange 2003 box currently is a DC.
Should I setup the new server for Exchange (I will be using W2k3 on the box)
in the same domain or do I create a new W2K3 domain?

 

[Kurt]

I'm not much help with exchange, mainly because we don't use it.. Hopefully
someon else will weigh in. I'm not sure of the order you would take things
over. I would definitely reserach this thoroughly, though. You're not going
to get nearly enough info from newsgroup posts to pull this off.

...kurt