Category Archives: Domain Controller

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

Posted on August 12, 2017 by jbernec

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Raising Active Directory Forest and Domain Functional Levels Using PowerShell.

Posted on November 10, 2015 by jbernec

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

PowerShell Script Monitors Security Logs and Sends Email Alerts.

Posted on November 12, 2014 by jbernec

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Configuring Active Directory Time using the W32TM Utility.

Posted on May 13, 2014 by jbernec

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. … Continue reading →

Posted in Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, Active Directory Time, AD Forest, Domain Controller, PowerShell | Tagged , | 1 Comment

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

Posted on January 27, 2014 by jbernec

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: … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

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

Posted on January 13, 2014 by jbernec

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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

Posted on December 30, 2013 by jbernec

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

Posted on December 23, 2013 by jbernec

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in 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 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment