Forcing member server to authenticate to primary DC

[Karidian]

Does anyone know how I can force my member servers to authenticate to my "primary" DC? Also, is there a way to change the logon server on a member server without a restart?

I have 2 DCs, one is Win08 (my primary) and the other is Win03. Some of my member servers are authenticating against the Win03 DC server and I need to have them authenticate against the Win08 DC server.

Thanks!

Rob Pierce, Systems Administrator
Lipo Chemicals, Inc.

http://www.lipochemicals.com

 

[theravager]

If you can explain why i can probibly offer some suggestions

 

[Karidian]

Thanks, theravager.

I have a need to restert the secondary DC from time to time, and am concerned about the repercussions on the servers that authenticate to it. For example, my Citrix servers are authenticating to the backup DC when they restart weekly and I would prefer that they authenticate to my primary DC.



Rob Pierce, Systems Administrator
Lipo Chemicals, Inc.

http://www.lipochemicals.com

 

[58sniper]

If your Sites and Services are properly configured, they should authenticate to any domain controller in the same site first. If there aren't any, then they'll grab one from another site.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[acl03]

In any normal domain setup, even if Sites and Services are NOT set up correctly, restarting any DC should not impact the ability to log on. If a server usually connects to server A for logon, and you shut down server A, it should hit server B with no problem.

Do you have more than one location? Or are both DC's in the same site? If they are in separate locations, you will need to set up Sites and Subnets to force logons to stay local when possible, as Pat said.

If you only have one location, then none of this is necessary.

Thanks,
Andrew

Hard work often pays off over time, but procrastination pays off right now!

 

[Zelandakh]

DCs act like clusters by design. Restarting all but one DC should make no difference to your network except additional load unless you need to play with specific FSMO role holders.

 

[Roadki11]

Going to want additional GC's and DNS servers also.


RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[58sniper]

And, since many orgs put DHCP on DCs, you'd want to look at that as well.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[theravager]

long as dns is setup correctly the other servers will just reauthenticate with another dc.