global catalog and dc administration 1

[fabmiles]

I have 3 servers, A B and C, wich are all DC (w2k sp4)
A is an Exchange server 2000 sp3, B and C are both Global catalog and C holds all the fsmo roles.
I would like to demote B to a member server
These are my questions:
After demoting B from CG to DC, what do I have to do before starting dcpromo? A simple reboot or are there other actions to do before the exchange server stops reporting it as a GC?
Thanks

 

[nhidalgo]

I don't believe you need to do anything and just do the dc promo if you have exchange set to automatically detect active directory gc's and domain controllers rather than static mapping to a certain gc.

Nick

 

[fabmiles]

Thanks for the help Nick.
I have another question. Do you think it's a good idea to promote the Exchange server to a GC to provide fault tolerance?

 

[nhidalgo]

We had our first exchange server setup as a domain controller and gc. It also had all operaton master roles since it was the first domain controller in our active directory domain. You can definetly do it, but i would recommend it. The lsass.exe(Active directory security server) process can hammer the server causing really bad performance. I would dc promo another server for fault tolerance, because if you need to reboot your 1 domain controller mail will not function until it is back online.

Nick

 

[Althor33]

I have a scenario that ressemble this.
I have Server A which served as ADC for migration and is GC and PDC.
I have server B who is Exchange 2000, not PDC.
I have server C and D who are PDC and C is FSMO
I removed the 5.5 server and passed into native mode.
I removed ADC from server A who is no longer needed.

When i shutdown server A, I cannot access Exchange ?!?

Any ideas ?

Althor

 

[nhidalgo]

Run dcdiag. Also check your file replication service in the event viewer on server A. You probably have the journal wrapper error which prevents your other domain controllers from fully becomming domain controllers. The error should have a redirect to the ms site for the fix. Once this is fixed, you should see your other servers on the directory access tab in exchange.

Nick

 

[Althor33]

Thanx Nick.

Ran dcdiag on server A (the one I want removed).
All seems ok except the time server and w32time.
This service is not running on this server (time is
controlled with RocketTime software).

I cheked the Directory Access Tab in Exchange.
All DC are there. Server A has three entries:
Config (auto)
DC (auto)
GC (auto)

I have no journal wrapper error on any servers.

Any other ideas ?

Thanx again.

AlThor

 

[nhidalgo]

You should run dcdiag on the other two servers. Make sure they are advertising themselves and not refering to server A. In the directory access tab in exchange, do you also see the other server besides server A.
You removed the adc, are you trying to demote this server also

Is exchange pointing to server a for dns?

 

[nhidalgo]

also if your exchange "Configuraton Domain Controller" is down, exchange will not fucntion so you may want to transfer this role to another server.

 

[fabmiles]

Thank you Nick, but I'm not sure I've understood your suggestion.
Our Exchange server is also a DC, therefore the lsass.exe process is already active. I know that it would be better to have 2 DC and a third server with exchange only, but, as yo know, it is not a cheap solution. It was difficult enough to convince everybody of the importance of buying a second server. The third one I'm using now, is a test server without license and without the right hardware configuration (it's a simple PC on wich I've installed windows 2k), that's the reason why I have to demote it. After the demotion of this test server I would have this scenario:
Server A: Exchange server and DC
server C: DC and GC
In this situation, what about the promotion of server A to GC?
Thanks again

 

[Althor33]

Thanx Nick,

I removed GC role from server A
Gave GC role to server C and D (since I did not have another server with GC, it might not have helped)

After 5 minutes (the exchange server did not respond) the Directory Access Tab contained the new servers (C and D)

I am now able to shutdown server A.

AlThor