Speed up Domain Controler startup time 1

[pinkpanther56]

It always seems to be a problem that if we take down all of our servers that the PDCe that is the primary DNS server takes ages to start. I think this is because it can't resolve DNS names as the DNS service isn't started and it looks to itself for name resolution (I think MS refer to it as a DNS island). Is there a way to tweek the service start order to prevent this?

All of our DC's are server 2008 SP2.

Thanks.

 

[baddos]

That is correct. Do NOT restart all of your domain controllers at the same time.

 

[58sniper]

And in all actuality, there should seldom be a reason to reboot a DC, other than maybe after Patch Tuesday. And that should be staggered across DCs.

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/

 

[pinkpanther56]

As we're a high school we do get chance to take everything down in the hols which can be handy if we want to move hardware around.

MS PSS (and ADGod on Tek- Tips) told me that the first DC (usually the PDCe) in the forest should only have it's self listed as a DNS server (if you use AD integrated DNS) rather than having a secondary DNS server set. All other DC's list this one first and another as a secondary. This of course means that my PDCe takes ages to start 'every' time it's rebooted.
I'll be honest I never noticed a problem when I had a secondary DNS server listed on the PDCe, should I go back to that configuration?

Thanks.

 

[kmcferrin]

No.

And just because you "have the chance to take everything down" doesn't mean that you should. I'm assuming that you aren't moving your servers around all the time? If so then you may want to rethink that. I could see potentially shutting everything down over the summer holidays if you know that the school will not be used for a couple of months and nobody will ever need to have access to the systems during the holidays. But by doing so you're ensuring that when your systems come up they will all be out of date on their security patches, antivirus definitions, etc. And of course if you have an administrator that needs access to something during the holiday then they won't have access to it. It seems to me like it's more work/hassle than it saves.

As 58sniper mentioned, there is rarely a good reason to turn off a DC. It's a key piece of infrastructure and should remain running 24/7. If you have to reboot DCs then stagger the process so that there is always at least one completely up and running at all times.

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[58sniper]

And make sure you plan for service outage, like DHCP if you only have it running on one server.

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/

 

[pinkpanther56]

Ok thanks. This still leaves me with the very long startup time of the PDCe even if i'm just rebooting for a patch due to it only listing itself as a DNS server, should I list the secondary DNS server to prevent this?

 

[58sniper]

define "very long time". 10 minutes?

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/

 

[pinkpanther56]

I've seen it take 10-15 mins before. The other DC's start in no time when the PDCe (also primary DNS) is running.

This DC runs without errors the rest of the time and Netdiag and DCdiag don't report any issues.

Thanks.

 

[baddos]

I personally would set the secondary dns address on your pdc to be another domain controller.

 

[58sniper]

IMHO, 15 minutes is a non-issue if everything eventually comes up correctly.

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/

 

[pinkpanther56]

So do you set the first DC in the forest to only use itself for DNS pat?

Thanks all.

 

[58sniper]

No. All DCs in my environments are always set for two DNS servers. And those DNS servers are internal, AD integrated DNS servers with multiple forwarders.

But that's just me.

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/

 

[pinkpanther56]

Ok thanks for the information.