Active Directory Domain Services 2008 : Identify Operations Master Role Holders

12/24/2011 3:39:33 PM

Identify Operations Master Role Holders

Scenario/Problem: Certain domain controllers, referred to as operations master role holders, have special roles installed. These roles are used for various tasks that require a single server to be authoritative for the given task.

Solution: You can use the dsquery and netdom command-line tools to identify operations master role holders.

Identify Operations Master Role Holders by Using Dsquery

To identify operations master role holders by using Dsquery, perform the following steps:

1.	Log on to a domain controller.
2.	Click Start, and click Command Prompt.
3.	In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command and press Enter: dsquery server –hasfsmo rolename (where rolename is the name of the role you want to query for).

Table 1 lists the role names used by dsquery.

Table 1. Operations Master Role Names Used by dsquery
Role Name	Operations Master Role
Schema	Schema Master
Name	Domain Naming Master
Infr	Infrastructure Master
PDC	PDC Emulator
RID	RID Master

Note

The distinguished name of the operations master role holder is returned, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Using dsquery to identify operations master role holders.

Identify Operations Master Role Holders by Using Netdom

To identify operations master role holders by using the netdom, perform the following steps:

1.	Log on to a domain controller.
2.	Click Start, and click Command Prompt.
3.	In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command and press Enter: netdom query /domain:domainname.local fsmo (where domainname is the name of the domain in which you want to query operations master role holders).

Note

The names of the operations master role holders are returned, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Using Netdom to identify operations master role holders.

Validate Domain Controller Advertising

Scenario/Problem: Domain controllers provide a number of services. During troubleshooting, you might need to determine whether a domain controller is providing all the required services.

Solution: You can validate domain controller advertising by using the dcdiag command-line tool.

To validate domain controller advertising, perform the following steps:

1.	Log on to a domain controller.
2.	Click Start, and click Command Prompt.
3.	In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command and press Enter: dcdiag /s:servername /test:advertising (where servername is the name of the server you want to test for advertising).