Category: Domain Controller

• Remove Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) from a WS2012 R2 with PowerShell.

  I decided to tear down my Azure Lab IaaS and ASR infrastructure and rebuild it. The process involves removing the ASR configurations, Recovery Vaults, S2S VPNs, VNets and Azure VM running as a Azure based Domain controller for resilience with on-premise infrastructure and Azure deployed Apps. The next steps will include uninstalling the Domain Controller,…

  jbernec

  August 12, 2017

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, Azure, Azure Site Recovery, Azure VPN, DCPromo, Domain Controller, FSMO, Microsoft Hyper-v, PowerShell, Powershell 4.0, Windows Server 2012 R2

  Active Directory Domain Services, ADDS, ADDSDeployment, Azure, Azure Resource Groups, Azure Resource Manager, Azure Site Recovery, PowerShell 5.0, WS2012 R2

• Raising Active Directory Forest and Domain Functional Levels Using PowerShell.

  As part of the infrastructure clean up and upgrade plans, we have decided to raise the DFL and FFL of our domain to take advantage of new Windows Server features. The first step in the process is making sure all new DCs in the domain are running the same version of Windows Server. To meet…

  jbernec

  November 10, 2015

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, Active Directory Replication, AD Forest, Domain Controller, PowerShell, PowerShell 3.0, Powershell 4.0, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 Backup

  Active Directory PowerShell Module, Domain controller, Domain Functional Level, DomainMode, Forest Functional Level, ForestMode

• PowerShell Script Monitors Security Logs and Sends Email Alerts.

  I wrote this PowerShell script to send email alerts when Active Directory User Account, Security and Distribution Group Management events occur in the Security logs.A few parameters will need to be edited to adapt the script to any Active Directory domain environment.Also, the script will not work on Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Domain Controllers…

  jbernec

  November 12, 2014

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, Audit Logs, Domain Controller, Event Logs, PowerShell, PowerShell 3.0, Powershell 4.0, Windows Server 2008 R2 Backup, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

  Audits, Eventviewer, Log Source, Security Logs

• Configuring Active Directory Time using the W32TM Utility.

  Active Directory domain time in my lab domain has been off by a few minutes of UTC time for a while now. Resetting time across an Active Directory domain is a straight forward process using the W32tm command line tool. My first step was to determine the current AD domain time source on my client:…

  jbernec

  May 13, 2014

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, Active Directory Time, AD Forest, Domain Controller, PowerShell

  AD Time, W32TM

• Using NTDSUTIL Metada Cleanup to Remove a Failed/Offline Domain Controller Object.

  In this post, I would like to talk about using the ntdsutil utility for metadata cleanup. A domain controller failure ‘DC00’ recently occurred in my lab. Running the repadmin /replsum command confirmed a replication error and showed DC00 as unavailable: Since a dcpromo was obviously out of the question, I used the Ntdsutil metadata cleanup…

  jbernec

  January 27, 2014

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, AD Forest, DCPromo, Domain Controller, DSRM, Flexible Single Master Operations, FSMO, NTDSUtil, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 Backup, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

  Active Directory, DNS, Domain controller, Flexible Single Master Operations, FSMO, metadata cleanup, ntdsutil

• Demoting the last Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller with PowerShell.

  As with promoting a server to domain controller, demoting the a domain controller is also a straight forward process with PowerShell. The following PowerShell cmdlets are available from the ADDSDeployment module: Uninstall Active Directory: The demote process got a little tricky because this was the last DC in the domain and had an Operations Master…

  jbernec

  January 13, 2014

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, AD Forest, DCPromo, Domain Controller, PowerShell, PowerShell 3.0, Powershell 4.0, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

  Active Directory, Cmdlets, Powershell 3.0, Windows PowerShell, Windows Server 2012, WS 2012, WS2012 R2

• Deploying a Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller in an existing Win2003 Functional Level Domain.

  My first task before deploying a Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller in a Windows Server 2003 forest functional level environment was to run the Test-ADDSDomainControllerInstallation cmdlet and determine my domain environment’s readiness to accept the new Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller installation without any glitches: [ws2012r2]: PS C:\Users\admin\Documents> Test-ADDSDomainControllerInstallation -DomainName genesys.net | fl…

  jbernec

  December 30, 2013

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, AD Forest, DCPromo, Domain Controller, DSRM, Flexible Single Master Operations, FSMO, NTDSUtil, PowerShell, PowerShell 3.0, Powershell 4.0, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

  Active Directory, Cmdlets, dcdiag, DNS, Domain controller, Flexible Single Master Operations, FSMO, Operations Master, Powershell 3.0, Schema Version, Windows PowerShell, WS2012 R2

• Seizing Active Directory FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operations ) roles with Powershell.

  I have been running 2 Virtual Machines as Active Directory Domain Controllers in the Lab for sometime now. DC00 was running Windows Server 2003 R2 and DC01 is running Windows Server 2008 R2. But recently I lost a Hyper-v machine hosting DC00 Domain Controller VM, I had no replica available to immediately failover and didn’t…

  jbernec

  December 23, 2013

  Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, AD Forest, Domain Controller, Flexible Single Master Operations, FSMO, NTDSUtil, PowerShell, PowerShell 3.0, Powershell 4.0, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

  Active Directory, Cmdlets, Domain controller, Flexible Single Master Operations, FSMO, ntdsutil, Operations Master, Powershell 3.0, Windows PowerShell