Need to rename a Domain Controller

Dashrender

OK I looked - interesting.. but only 2003 and 2003 r2 are listed.

Kelly

In my experience renaming a DC without following @Dashrender's steps is asking for issues down the road. AD and DNS just don't play well at times, and anything affecting that fragile relationship goes into the "do not do" category for me.

IRJ

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

handsofqwerty

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

handsofqwerty

If you need to rename it, why not just create a new VM, move FSMO roles over and then move the other functions over as well?

@handsofqwerty said:

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

It's not it's just someone improperly licensed it, as it's datacenter on a different server not licensed for Datacenter. It is only a DC with DHCP. But I want two DCs up at all times and the new DC I will be making will needs to have the Hostname that this DC does.

handsofqwerty

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

It's not it's just someone improperly licensed it, as it's datacenter on a different server not licensed for Datacenter. It is only a DC with DHCP. But I want two DCs up at all times and the new DC I will be making will needs to have the Hostname that this DC does.

So if you've got another DC currently, move the PDC role to it, spin up the VM where it needs to be, elevate it to a DC and then demote this one and decomm it. If for a couple hours you've got a license issue, I don't think that's really an issue since you'll be removing the one. So for a very brief time you'll have three DCs until you decommission the original one.

IRJ

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

It's not it's just someone improperly licensed it, as it's datacenter on a different server not licensed for Datacenter. It is only a DC with DHCP. But I want two DCs up at all times and the new DC I will be making will needs to have the Hostname that this DC does.

It's very easy to export DHCP scopes and settings.

handsofqwerty

@IRJ said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

It's not it's just someone improperly licensed it, as it's datacenter on a different server not licensed for Datacenter. It is only a DC with DHCP. But I want two DCs up at all times and the new DC I will be making will needs to have the Hostname that this DC does.

It's very easy to export DHCP scopes and settings.

Yeah, exactly. Or if it's not a complex setup, it might be just as easy to replicate the settings from scratch. It depends on what you have setup.

After talking to several sr system admins I'll just rename it. There's a recommended practice from Microsoft on it and no one has ever had an issue doing it.

dafyre

@thecreativeone91 You better cross your eyes, fingers, toes and legs... and knock on wood before you start, lol.

@dafyre said:

@thecreativeone91 You better cross your eyes, fingers, toes and legs... and knock on wood before you start, lol.

Lol. as long as it's only a DC there's little to go wrong you verfiy the DNS updates at each step. as long as the DNS is updated correctly for replication then there is nothing to go wrong.

IRJ

I will never change anything major on a DC ever again. It's too easy to just spin up a new one and demote the old one. This way you have no downtime at all and no chance for anything to go wrong.

IRJ

@thecreativeone91 said:

@dafyre said:

@thecreativeone91 You better cross your eyes, fingers, toes and legs... and knock on wood before you start, lol.

Lol. as long as it's only a DC there's little to go wrong you verfiy the DNS updates at each step. as long as the DNS is updated correctly for replication then there is nothing to go wrong.

Any reason you want to walk on egg shells and have downtime?

Dashrender

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

It's not it's just someone improperly licensed it, as it's datacenter on a different server not licensed for Datacenter. It is only a DC with DHCP. But I want two DCs up at all times and the new DC I will be making will needs to have the Hostname that this DC does.

Mind if I ask why the new one needs the name of the current one?

@Dashrender said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

@IRJ said:

@Dashrender has a solid plan, but why not just demote and rebuild the VM? Of course that is assuming your DCs are just DCs and having nothing else on them.

Totally agree with this. I'd assume if he's looking to rename it's because there ARE other things on it.

It's not it's just someone improperly licensed it, as it's datacenter on a different server not licensed for Datacenter. It is only a DC with DHCP. But I want two DCs up at all times and the new DC I will be making will needs to have the Hostname that this DC does.

Mind if I ask why the new one needs the name of the current one?

So software configs that authenticate against a single DC don't need to be changed. as many of them only allow one DC.

@IRJ said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@dafyre said:

@thecreativeone91 You better cross your eyes, fingers, toes and legs... and knock on wood before you start, lol.

Lol. as long as it's only a DC there's little to go wrong you verfiy the DNS updates at each step. as long as the DNS is updated correctly for replication then there is nothing to go wrong.

Any reason you want to walk on egg shells and have downtime?

It's not walking on egg shells nor will there be any downtime.

@IRJ said:

I will never change anything major on a DC ever again. It's too easy to just spin up a new one and demote the old one. This way you have no downtime at all and no chance for anything to go wrong.

I would have to spin up multiple DCs to do this. And Renaming a DC is well supported and easy to do. you just gotta make sure you do it right.

All went well took all of 2 minutes and then verified replication and DNS updates.

Here's a in depth guide on the way Microsoft recommended to do it: http://terrytlslau.tls1.cc/2013/06/rename-domain-controller.html

New DC with It's old Hostname is now up and replicating fine.

Dashrender

Awesome, glad it worked.