Not many administrators realize that they can run Dcpromo from an unattended answer file
and eliminate all those cute little Wizard prompts. When combined with the Install from
Media (IFM) option we discussed in Recovering a DC using 'Install from Media' last month, using an answer file makes Dcpromo a
very easy operation when a domain controller (DC) has to be rebuilt in a remote site.
Consider one customer I worked with in the past. The company had a number of sites, and
not all of them had an IT staff on the premises. At one site, the only technical person
they had was the receptionist. The company sent her through some training so she had
some basic IT skills. Thus, the IT staff members at another site could talk her through
anything they needed her to do on site. If the DC had a hardware failure that required a
DC to be rebuilt, an IT person could either do a CD install or issue a server image
using RIS or other third-party products. Typically, it isn't a good idea to image a DC
because there are continual changes, and the image would be out of date pretty quickly.
To get it promoted, they could use IFM and ship a DVD or tape with the restored system
state of a DC in the domain, but then they'd have to talk the receptionist through the
Dcpromo prompts and hope she didn't make any typos. Of course they would also have to
trust her with a domain admin account.
A better option for Dcpromo would be to use the unattended answer file option. They
could put the answer file on the DVD with the backup state and direct the receptionist
to simply enter the following command from the command line or just make a simple .bat
file and have her run that from the DVD.
C:> dcpromo /adv /answer:c:scripts\answerfile.txt
The /adv option is required for IFM to let Dcpromo
source from the local media. The /answer option
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points to an answer file that would contain all the answers. In this case, the file is
called "answerfile.txt" and is in the c:\scripts
directory. Just provide the correct path in the command line, and it can exist in any
directory of your choosing.
Example
Microsoft's Knowledge Base article 311078
is an excellent guide that contains samples for various answer files to promote the
initial DC in a domain, a replica DC, and so on. The answer file shown here promotes a
replica DC since IFM can only be used for replicas. Here is information about the
various command lines so you know what is going on:
Steps:
- Create a file using the following commands. In our example, we call this file
"Dcpromo-unattend.txt". Note that the credentials of an administrator account including
the password are entered.
- If you run the answer file more than once, you must re-enter the admin account and
password each time or the script will terminate at the screen asking for
credentials.
Important: Remove all comment lines (lines prefixed with a semicolon) before
using this as an answer file.
Note: Before running Dcpromo, you may want to rename the computer to a name reflective of a DC (i.e. Corp-DC2 rather than Corp-SRV1), depending on your naming convention. However, Windows 2003 permits renaming a DC without demoting it.
On the member server, execute the following command from a command prompt:
C:> Dcpromo /adv /answer:C:\dcpromo-unattend.txt
Note: Specify the full path to the answer file.
If successful, the computer will reboot automatically at the end of Dcpromo. You
shouldn't have to enter any information manually or interact with any dialogs. If you
are prompted for any information, it means information is missing from the answer
file.
Edit the Dcpromo-unattend.txt file. Note that the password field has been erased to
prevent the admin password from existing in a simple text file.
Note: Using the answer file option in the Dcpromo command line will prevent the new
dialog that prompts you for the location of the system state restore files from
appearing, just as the answer file will prevent any GUI dialog from appearing for any
questions that are correctly defined in the answer file.
Debugging:
- The normal way to debug an answer file is to simply run the command line above. If
there are any errors in the answer file, Dcpromo simply aborts the unattend mode and
brings up the Wizard, requiring you to enter the missing information. Once you run
Dcpromo and no GUI dialogs appear, you know the answer file is correct -- at least
syntactically.
- Make sure all the domain-specific information is correct.
- Make sure the path to the answer file in the Dcpromo command line is correct.
- Remember that the admin account and password are cleared each time you run the
answer file, so if you run the command line and it prompts you for a username and
password, re-enter them in the answer file. Of course you may want to have it prompt you
for security reasons.
Clean up:
After the computer reboots, check to make sure Dcpromo was successful. From a command
prompt, enter the command Net Share. You should
then see Netlogon and Sysvol shares listed. If they don't show up, then the promotion
wasn't successful, which would likely be due to failed replication. Also check the DNS
settings.
Gary Olsen is an HP/Compaq consultant on Active Directory design. He authored Wi
ndows 2000 Active Directory Design and Deployment and co-authored Windows Server 2003 on
HP ProLiant Servers.
