test domain completely offline.. help

I just made the biggest mistake ever...

here's the situation. I have a test domain(4 DC's across two sites..) I had
everything working properly(replication and whatnot) and the vmware esx
server that hosted the DC's in my boston site crashed. I had to rebuild and
the time ended up being off... I didn't notice this, or notice the
replication errors... until after I raised the functional level last night
from mixed 2000 to native 2000.. I figured maybe it was something else and
let the dc's run overnight.. nothing changed. I just realized that it was a
time issue so I fixed the time on the DC's in boston(the dublin DC's were
perfectly fine in terms of time..) My dc's from boston jumped from
11/17/2007 to todays date and time(EDT..).. the stupid thing that I did
was rebooted all 4 DC's...

Now I'm screwed.. I can't RDC into any of them.. and on a console I can log
in but I can't do anything AD related. If I open ADI.msc I was getting "the
specified domain does not exist or could not be found" and I couldn't manage
the domain. DNS was also offline(adi integrated..) I just checked again on
the DC that holds the FSMO roles and I can see the domain from the snapin..
as well as the other dc's.. but DNS is still offline.

My guess is that the time jump royally screwed everything up. I can RDC
into my remote DC's now so that's a better sign.. I just have to figure out
why DNS isn't working.

I suppose this more turned into a cry/rant than a question, but if anyone
has ever experienced similar.. and would like to share.. by all means..

Meinolf
Sat May 03 10:28:59 PDT 2008

Hello infinitiguy,

Please be more detailed with the problems error messages etc. You talk about
NO-RDC, then yes, so what now? Also you talk about DNS problem, how are the
symptoms? Try to bring your problems underlined with errors from event viewer,
dcdiag, netdiag or replmon or just a good description what is not working
as expected.

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm

> I just made the biggest mistake ever...
>
> here's the situation. I have a test domain(4 DC's across two sites..)
> I had everything working properly(replication and whatnot) and the
> vmware esx server that hosted the DC's in my boston site crashed. I
> had to rebuild and the time ended up being off... I didn't notice
> this, or notice the replication errors... until after I raised the
> functional level last night from mixed 2000 to native 2000.. I
> figured maybe it was something else and let the dc's run overnight..
> nothing changed. I just realized that it was a time issue so I fixed
> the time on the DC's in boston(the dublin DC's were perfectly fine in
> terms of time..) My dc's from boston jumped from 11/17/2007 to todays
> date and time(EDT..).. the stupid thing that I did was rebooted all
> 4 DC's...
>
> Now I'm screwed.. I can't RDC into any of them.. and on a console I
> can log in but I can't do anything AD related. If I open ADI.msc I
> was getting "the specified domain does not exist or could not be
> found" and I couldn't manage the domain. DNS was also offline(adi
> integrated..) I just checked again on the DC that holds the FSMO
> roles and I can see the domain from the snapin.. as well as the other
> dc's.. but DNS is still offline.
>
> My guess is that the time jump royally screwed everything up. I can
> RDC into my remote DC's now so that's a better sign.. I just have to
> figure out why DNS isn't working.
>
> I suppose this more turned into a cry/rant than a question, but if
> anyone has ever experienced similar.. and would like to share.. by
> all means..
>

infinitiguy
Sat May 03 11:03:01 PDT 2008

I was a bit general because I wasn't sure exactly what was going on. As far
as AD went, it was complaining about SPN records not being registered
etc(which I assume was a symptom of DNS being offline). During the post I
was watching the environment and I think all I needed was to give it time..
eventaully I could RDC and mount the domain on all DCs.. a few minutes
later DNS came back online and all DC's reflected native(as opposed to before
where two of the DC's didn't even have modes...).

I'm going to let things sit for a few hours so I can get a few entries of
good behaviour, but I did see in the event log now that "the previous
problems preventing active directory replication has been fixed, and now
replication will occur(or something along those lines)". So I think for now
I'm good.

Stay tuned.

"Meinolf Weber" wrote:

> Hello infinitiguy,
>
> Please be more detailed with the problems error messages etc. You talk about
> NO-RDC, then yes, so what now? Also you talk about DNS problem, how are the
> symptoms? Try to bring your problems underlined with errors from event viewer,
> dcdiag, netdiag or replmon or just a good description what is not working
> as expected.
>
> Best regards
>
> Meinolf Weber
> Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
> no rights.
> ** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
> ** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
>
> > I just made the biggest mistake ever...
> >
> > here's the situation. I have a test domain(4 DC's across two sites..)
> > I had everything working properly(replication and whatnot) and the
> > vmware esx server that hosted the DC's in my boston site crashed. I
> > had to rebuild and the time ended up being off... I didn't notice
> > this, or notice the replication errors... until after I raised the
> > functional level last night from mixed 2000 to native 2000.. I
> > figured maybe it was something else and let the dc's run overnight..
> > nothing changed. I just realized that it was a time issue so I fixed
> > the time on the DC's in boston(the dublin DC's were perfectly fine in
> > terms of time..) My dc's from boston jumped from 11/17/2007 to todays
> > date and time(EDT..).. the stupid thing that I did was rebooted all
> > 4 DC's...
> >
> > Now I'm screwed.. I can't RDC into any of them.. and on a console I
> > can log in but I can't do anything AD related. If I open ADI.msc I
> > was getting "the specified domain does not exist or could not be
> > found" and I couldn't manage the domain. DNS was also offline(adi
> > integrated..) I just checked again on the DC that holds the FSMO
> > roles and I can see the domain from the snapin.. as well as the other
> > dc's.. but DNS is still offline.
> >
> > My guess is that the time jump royally screwed everything up. I can
> > RDC into my remote DC's now so that's a better sign.. I just have to
> > figure out why DNS isn't working.
> >
> > I suppose this more turned into a cry/rant than a question, but if
> > anyone has ever experienced similar.. and would like to share.. by
> > all means..
> >
>
>
>