Hiya... quick one this..

is there an easy way to "copy" AD data to use in another domain?

ive set up a test domain, separate from live systems to test intergration with Unix.

its mainly the users im interested in copying.

cheers

AutoIT

addusers.exe will let you import and export user data.

The other option would be to add a new DC to the existing domain then disconnect it from your live network. It can then be removed from the directory on live network but will quite happily work on it's own.

You can then promote this to have all the FSMO roles and use it as the DC in your test environment. Obviously you'd never reconnect it to the live network afterwards , and make sure there is no connectivity between live and test systems but it would be a better test using "real" data.

addusers.exe will let you import and export user data.

The other option would be to add a new DC to the existing domain then disconnect it from your live network. It can then be removed from the directory on live network but will quite happily work on it's own.

You can then promote this to have all the FSMO roles and use it as the DC in your test environment. Obviously you'd never reconnect it to the live network afterwards ' date=' and make sure there is no connectivity between live and test systems but it would be a better test using "real" data.[/quote']

It would have to be connected to the network to test on.

basically all our current systems use unix authentication.. but as we are planning to migrate the company over to exchange server/terminal services, we are trying to intergrate the authentication to avoid having seperate logins and passwords.

would it screw up the current domain if i added the test domain as a tree in the same forest and then used the migration util? :confused:

Ok , forget what I said initially then.

As for adding the new domain into the existing forest , that shouldn't cause any problems in terms of functionality as you can have the same username in different domains with no problems.

Ok ' date=' forget what I said initially then.

As for adding the new domain into the existing forest , that shouldn't cause any problems in terms of functionality as you can have the same username in different domains with no problems.[/quote']

another *related* question...

Is it possible to restrict logons to just their own domains..

eg, at moment ive got 2 domains.. one is a nt4 and the AD one is server2003.

they are theoretically separate, but do have trust relationships as users print between machines.

can i stop the trusted domains showing in the "logon to" box when users log in?

Don't think you can remove the other domain from the drop down list , but they should only be able to log onto the one that their user account is actually in.

You'd then just have to use permissions to control access to anything in the trusted domain

Errm well.

Im now trying to demote and remove the test domain and i cant do it.. its complaining about DNS lookup errors.

this is probably because the DNS suffix and DNS server the machine is registered to is different from the Forest that its part of. (you may or may not remember my fun and games a few months ago when trying to get AD working on a outdated BIND4 dns server... well things are more complex now, theres 3 dns servers across 2 networks.... the Bind one, and the 2k3 one for our network, and another 2k3 dns server on another "virtual" network on a different domain.

i know i can remove the domain manually from the main servers.. but how can i force un-install AD and domain control from my little test machine?

i wish this feckin company would pay for me to do microsoft courses!

Which DNS server is hosting the zone for the domain that you are trying to do away with?

Which DNS server is hosting the zone for the domain that you are trying to do away with?

It seems to be the one thats on a separate virtual network.

what a pain in the ***!

ok, i think ive removed all the metadata from the current domain.. will give it a while and hopefully it should dissapear from the domain list