Knowledge Builders

can you snapshot a domain controller

by Dr. Jacques Herman Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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'Do not take or use a Snapshot of a virtual domain controller. ' Same thing goes to copying the Virtual hard disk of a Domain controller, using differencing disks, or any other yet un-invented feature of rolling the VM itself back in-time without using a supported backup and restore method.

How do you setup a domain controller?

  • Leave Domain Name System (DNS) server and Global Catalog (GC) checked on the Domain Controller Options page
  • Specify a Directory Services Restore Mode password based on your organizational requirements
  • Change the paths from C: to point to the F: drive we created when prompted for their location
  • Review the selections made in the wizard and choose Next

How do I set up Windows domain controller?

Windows Server 2016 - Setup Local Domain Controller

  • Install Windows Server 2016. 1.1) Download Windows Server 2016: Technet Evaluation Center. ...
  • Setup Windows Server 2016. 2.1) Server Dashboard opens automatically by default (when closed it can be opened from Start). ...
  • Setup Active Directory Domain Controller. ...
  • Create a domain. ...
  • Add users to Active Directory. ...
  • Additional videos. ...

How do I find the domain controller?

List all Domain Controllers in Domain

  • List all Domain Controllers in Domain. In the above PowerShell script, Get-AdDomain PowerShell cmdlet gets AD domain name and stored in variable $DomainName.
  • Get all Domain Controllers using Get-AdGroupMember
  • List all Domain Controllers in Forest. ...
  • Nltest to list all Domain Controllers. ...
  • Conclusion. ...

How to move a domain controller to another site?

  • Try to find a domain controller in the same site.
  • If no domain controller is available in the same site, try to find a domain controller in the next closest site. ...
  • If no domain controller is available in the next closest site, try to find any domain controller in the domain.

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Can domain controller be restore from snapshot?

Since Windows Server 2012 domain controllers can also be restored via snapshot using an appropriate hypervisor. Among other things Microsoft introduced the Generation ID with Windows Server 2012. This makes a restore from of a virtual domain controller snapshot possible.

What is an Active Directory snapshot?

With windows 2008 server Microsoft introduces a new feature called active directory snapshots which can use to backup active directory data. Basically this tools creates a shadow copy of volumes that holds active directory data (Database and logs) using “Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)” running on server.

Should I backup domain controllers?

You should absolutely still be doing a backup of Active directory. All domain controllers can fail, database corruption can occur, viruses, ransomware or some other disaster could wipe out all domain controllers. In this situation, you would need to restore it from a backup.

How are Active Directory snapshots created?

Creating an Active Directory snapshot In order to create an Active Directory snapshot you need to use the NTDSUTIL command. NTDSUTIL is built into Windows Server 2008. It is available if you have the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) server role or the AD LDS server role installed.

What is the maximum supported age of a manual snapshot?

180 daysA snapshot can only be restored to the directory from which it was created. In addition, the maximum supported age of a manual snapshot is 180 days.

What is a Windows server snapshot?

A snapshot is a copy of the system disk and original configuration of an instance. The snapshot includes such information as memory, CPU, disk size, and data transfer rate.

How often should you backup a domain controller?

Back up Active Directory on a regular basis You should back up your Active Directory regularly with an interval that doesn't exceed 60 days. AD services presume that the age of the Active Directory backup cannot be more than the lifetime of AD tombstone objects, which by default is 60 days.

How do I backup a domain controller?

You can use either Windows Server backup or Wbadmin.exe to perform a System State backup of a domain controller to back up Active Directory. Microsoft recommends using either a dedicated internal disk or an external removable disk such as a USB hard disk to perform the backups.

Can you restore a domain controller from backup?

If you have a single domain controller and it is down, you can use Bare Metal Recovery in Windows Server Backup to restore a DC from a backup in Authoritative restore mode.

Does system state backup include Active Directory?

A System State backup generally includes a copy of any installed device drivers and related files, most of the Windows directory, the Windows Registry, the Active Directory configuration (where applicable) and system files under Windows File Protection.

How do you use Ntdsutil?

Select Start, select Run, type ntdsutil in the Open box, and then press ENTER. At the Ntdsutil command prompt, type files, and then press ENTER. At the file maintenance command prompt, type move logs to new location (where new location is an existing folder that you've created for this purpose), and then press ENTER.

How is the size of an Active Directory database compressed?

How do you compress the size of an Active Directory database? a. Use the defrag command.

What is Dsamain?

Dsamain.exe is a command-line tool that is built into Windows Server 2008. It is available if you have the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) server role installed.

Does system state backup include Active Directory?

A System State backup generally includes a copy of any installed device drivers and related files, most of the Windows directory, the Windows Registry, the Active Directory configuration (where applicable) and system files under Windows File Protection.

What is Ntdsutil command?

Ntdsutil.exe is a command-line tool that provides management facilities for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

How is the size of an Active Directory database compressed?

How do you compress the size of an Active Directory database? a. Use the defrag command.

Is it official to not do it?

The 'official' guidance is to not do it.

Does Windows Server 2012 have AD?

Windows Server 2012 add an AD definition to distinguish Snapshots recovery, we can use Snapshots recovery Domain Controller in virtual machine which support this new AD field.

Can you use domain controller snapshots in production?

You can test my opinion in test environment; however, do not try to use Domain Controller Snapshots in production environment if you don’t run it in Windows Server 2012 system.

Can you merge snapshots in Server 2012?

Also, prior to Server 2012, snapshots are not merged live in the background. Which means you take a running snapshot, back up, delete it, but you remain running in a snapshotted state. (a differencing disk chain exists).

Is a snapshot a backup?

Please do not consider a snapshot a backup. It is not the case with Hyper-V (or XenServer, or any hypervisor that is not ESX).

Is a snapshot a mute point?

As any data in memory is (frankly) a mute point. Also, prior to Server 2012, snapshots are not merged live in the background. Which means you take a running snapshot, back up, delete it, but you remain running in a snapshotted state. (a differencing disk chain exists).

Can you rollback a domain controller?

If you mean shutdown all Domain Controllers and recovery them from Snapshots which created at same segment, it will not cause USN rollback I think. However, it may cause user or computer authentication issue, since User account objects and Computer account objects may update after you take that snapshots.

How to use snapshot before upgrade?

Also what if you have 2 DC's and you want to use snapshot prior to an upgrade and do the following: 1. shutdown replication between servers using "repadmin / options +DISABLE_OUTBOUND_REPL". 2. Take a snapshot of both servers and enable replication back.

How old can snapshots be?

So it's best not to revert DC snapshots more than 60 days old.

Can you clone a second domain controller?

For a smaller organization with a virtual environment I have suggested that they do away with a second domain controller. It is easy to clone the DC (keep it small and simple) and do daily, or more often, system state backups. Smaller organizations often get into more trouble with DC synchronizing, or recovering master roles when they loose one DC.

Can you use a snapshot in ESX 3.5?

In ESX 3.5 you could not VSS snapshot and therefore I used Backup Exec System Recovery which did so. Now that I can VSS snapshot I've not had any issues.

Can AD backup be handled with VM?

AD backup must be handled in a proper way, not with VM or storage snapshots.

Can you revert a snap of a DC?

Seriously do not do this, reverting a snap of a DC will leave you in a world of pain. if you are going to install this product, make sure that you have a good backup and authoritive restore.

Does Active Directory restore snapshots?

In particular, Active Directory does not support any method that restores a " snapshot" of the operating system or the disk volume the operating system resides on. This kind of method causes a rollback in the update sequence number (USN) used to track changes in Active Directory.

What is a domain controller state?

The states of a domain controller are composed of computer, server, NTDS settings, FRS, DFSR, and connection objects maintained for each domain controller. When duplicating an object, this RPC method replaces all references to the original domain controller with corresponding objects of the new domain controller.

How to clone a virtualized domain controller?

At a high level, the three stages are: Prepare the environment. Step 1: Validate that the hypervisor supports VM-Generation ID and therefore, cloning.

What happens if you remove permission from domain head?

If you remove this permission from the domain head, cloning fails. You can recreate the permission using the Active Directory Administrative Center or Windows PowerShell.

How to determine which disks are associated with the source domain controller?

Use the Hyper-V Manager snap-in to determine which disks are associated with the source domain controller. Use the Inspect option to validate if the domain controller uses differencing disks (which requires that you copy the parent disk also)

How to add security to Active Directory?

Open Active Directory Administrative Center, right-click the domain head, click Properties, click the Extensions tab, click Security, and then click Advanced. Click This Object Only.

When cloning a domain that contains only a single domain controller, must you ensure the source DC is?

When cloning a domain that contains only a single domain controller, you must ensure the source DC is back online before starting the clone copies. A production domain should always contain at least two domain controllers.

Can you combine Active Directory cmdlets?

You can combine the following Active Directory Windows PowerShell Module cmdlets to return the version of the PDC emulator:

Question

Can we revert win2k12 domain controllers from snapshot when using vmware esx as hypervisor?

All replies

It depends. But technically yes, however there are a lot of considerations when doing this.

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1.Never Snapshot a Domain Controller! Here’s Why… - ITPro …

Url:https://www.itprotoday.com/server-virtualization/never-snapshot-domain-controller-here-s-why

26 hours ago  · At some point, you create a snapshot of the Domain Controller. After taking that snapshot, the DC then going about processing is usual changes to the AD database. Those changes are then replicated to other DCs in the forest.

2.Snapshots and Domain Controllers - Are they ALWAYS …

Url:https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/a6ed40b2-1aa3-4431-8717-91b5d07065af/snapshots-and-domain-controllers-are-they-always-bad

19 hours ago  · Yes, if you can shut down all machines in a domain and recovery them with snapshots created at same time segment, I think it will not cause USN rollback. If you mean shutdown all Domain Controllers and recovery them from Snapshots which created at same segment, it will not cause USN rollback I think.

3.Using Snapshots on Domain Controllers safe or not

Url:https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Backup-Recovery-Discussions/Using-Snapshots-on-Domain-Controllers-safe-or-not-depends-on/td-p/2575387

1 hours ago  · Since Windows Server 2012 domain controllers can also be restored via snapshot using an appropriate hypervisor. Among other things Microsoft introduced the Generation ID with Windows Server 2012. This makes a restore from of a …

4.How to properly snapshot and revert a Domain Controller

Url:https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Virtual-Machine-Guest-OS-and-VM/How-to-properly-snapshot-and-revert-a-Domain-Controller/td-p/2493624

30 hours ago  · Reverting a Domain Controller snapshot, in a multi-DC environment, to an earlier point in time is no different than if the server had been powered off for a while and booted up again. The member DC will contact it's peer DCs and see that its USN is lower and initiate a full replication sync.

5.Virtualized Domain Controller Deployment and …

Url:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-ds/get-started/virtual-dc/virtualized-domain-controller-deployment-and-configuration

17 hours ago  · First of all, Microsoft does not support any AD backup method that works like a snapshot. Instead, the company really wants to see you take a system state backup of the domain controller, which also captures the Active Directory database. Then, using appropriate tools, if necessary, you can recover a damaged Active Directory database using ...

6.Snapshot for Win2k12 domain controllers

Url:https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/4792e3be-144f-47de-831e-74f4a2e199fe/snapshot-for-win2k12-domain-controllers

36 hours ago  · This kind of method causes a rollback in the update sequence number (USN) used to track changes in Active Directory. When a USN rollback occurs, the contents of the Active Directory databases on the improperly restored domain controller and its replication partners may be permanently inconsistent" - from MS kb 888794.

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