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Active Directory and DNS issues

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bpinter

MIS
Nov 21, 2002
15
AU
Hi Everyone,

I am having an issue with accessing the Domain Controller Security Policy and Domain Security Policy consoles on any of the 3 DCs in our domain. The error is:

Group Policy Error
Failed to open the Group Policy Object. You may not have appropriate rights.
Details:
The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

I have done netdiag, dcdiag, looked at a hunded KB articles and forum posts, but nothing fits/fixes the issue.

A little background. There is one DC in Australia (ERNIE) and there are two DCs in Seattle (DC03 and DATA03.) The Seattle DCs used to be on a different domain but were renamed to the Australian domain. I think it is this domain renaming that is the root of the issues. There are still entries in the DNS (all 3 DCs are DNS servers) that point to the old domain. I've paused the zones relating to the old domain in all 3 DNS servers. All of the replication is working well. No Event Log errors to really speak of. The only issue I have other than the error mentioned is that on both of the Seattle DCs (DC03 and DATA03) the netlogon.dns file in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG have double entries for almost everything. One line entry for the new domain and a duplicate line for the old domain. I've gone through and removed the lines referring to the old domain, but when I restart the Netlogon service the entries reappear.

The only issue in dcdiag and netdiag log was this:

Running enterprise tests on : australia.office
Starting test: Intersite
Doing intersite inbound replication test on site Seattle:
Locating & Contacting Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG) ...
*Warning: ISTG time stamp is 26660 minutes old on DC03. Looking

for a new ISTG.
*Warning: The next ISTG could not be authoratively determined

for site Seattle. A DC should make an ISTG failover attempt in

25 minutes.
* Warning: Current ISTG failed, ISTG role should be taken by

DATA03 in 25 minutes.
Checking for down bridgeheads ...
Bridghead Brisbane\ERNIE is up and replicating fine.
Bridghead Seattle\DC03 is up and replicating fine.
Doing in depth site analysis ...
All expected sites and bridgeheads are replicating into site

Seattle.
Doing intersite inbound replication test on site Brisbane:
Locating & Contacting Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG) ...
*Warning: ISTG time stamp is 27878 minutes old on ERNIE.

Looking for a new ISTG.
***Error: The current ISTG is down in site Brisbane and further

dcdiag could not contact any other servers in the site that

could take the ISTG role. Ensure there is at least one up DC.

Must abandon inbound intersite replication test for this site.
*Warning: Could not locate the next ISTG or site Brisbane.

Using the last known ISTG ERNIE as the ISTG.
The ISTG for site Brisbane is: ERNIE.
Checking for down bridgeheads ...
Bridghead Seattle\DC03 is up and replicating fine.
Bridghead Brisbane\ERNIE is up and replicating fine.
Doing in depth site analysis ...
All expected sites and bridgeheads are replicating into site

Brisbane.
......................... australia.office passed test Intersite

One other thing that some KB articles make reference to are the DNS settings on the NICs in the servers. At this stage, ERNIE has itself as the primary DNS and DC03 as the secondary. Vice versa for DC03 (itself as primary, ERNIE as secondary.) DATA03 has DC03 as primary and itself as secondary. None of them have any external DNS servers entered in their NIC settings.

The FSMO roles are as follows:

Schema owner DC03.australia.office

Domain role owner DC03.australia.office

PDC role ernie.australia.office

RID pool manager DC03.australia.office

Infrastructure owner DC03.australia.office

DC03 and ERNIE are Global Catalog servers.

The replication is set up to happen between DC03 and ERNIE and DC03 and DATA03.

I am sure I've forgotten something, but if you need any more info, please let me know. I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction, because I've been fighting with this for a day and a half now.

Thanks
B.
 
I had a similar issue between my 2 servers and it was due to replication issues and the tombstone lifecycle had too long without replication, other than that I am not sure.
 
Hi,

I would have to say it sounds DNS fishy to me.

The DNS is set up correctly?
- Zone Replication?
- DNS ACLs and Permissions?

I am not 100% on how this all works, but am currently referencing the Windows Server 2000 DNS WhitePaper. - I assume 2003 is similar.


Page 22 has a scenario which may be applicabe to you (may not be either). -- DnsUpdateProxy Group --
This problem leads to stale records which cannot be updated.

A link which you may have read already but mentions using gpedit.


Cheers.
 
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