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Adding a second domain controller


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I have a server running as a domain controller and DNS, DHCP, Printer, File servers as well... Now i want to add a second domain controller to the same domain .. How do i do that so that if my first domain controller goes down it can take it's place till it's back up again?

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Thats what i did but it won't work unless the first server is working i want something to replace the first server momentarily till it's back up. Do i need to make the second domain controller a DNS server and print server as well???

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f you have added a second domain controller first you should monitor the logs to make sure everything is replicating ok, once it is you can then install dns and dhcp on the second server and set those up, do it something like a 60/40 split on dhcp and as for dns just point both servers to themselves for primary and the other one for secondary.

Also check through the scope options in dhcp on both servers when done to make sure its giving the hosts the values you need them to have :)

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if you are using Server 2003 R2, you can use the printer management to transfer those across, but if they are just network printers setup on that machine it will be faster to recreate them on the second machine

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Some additional thoughts:

Make both DCs GC servers.

Make your domain in DNS AD Integrated. There is no primary/sceondary and so it's easier to set up and it appears to make AD work a bit faster.

Set up DHCP on both servers and activate them both. Make each scope large enough to support all your DHCP clients. This gives you ongoing redundancy.

Supposedly you can use the print migration tool to migrate/copy all your pint queue data to another server. I tried this once and wasn't successful though (servers were in different domains).

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