Active directory / exchange 2003 problems!

Hey all,

OK well I have inherited a network at work that to put it bluntly is in **** state! The old System Admin got the sack for pretty much not knowing his arse from his elbow, so you can imagine the state it is in!

I have a few questions that would help me clear up a few trouble areas I have encountered!

I am having problems with one of the domians 'lc.com' in this domain there is three sites - London, Newbury and Angel. Now the Exchange server is located in Newbury and there is two other domain controlers there.

There is also 2 more DC's in London and another DC in Angel.

The london DC was configured to be the Global Cataloge and they all replicate to each other, some 1 time per hour and some 4 times an hour.

Now I am having a problem with the email/exchange. There are a few users in Newbury who seem to take a very very long time to send an email, move and email, delete an email, log in to outlook. Outlook just seems to hang for 10 mins in some cases.
It is only happening to 5 users up there and everyone else seems to have no problem at all.

Everyone is using outlook 2003 and the exchange server is 2003.


My questions are:

Is there a need to have that many DC's in the one domain?

Would it be best to break the domain down into Sub-domains I.E newbuy.lc.com - london.lc.com or is it best to just leave it as the one big domain, lc.com. (there is approx 80 users in this domain)?

Why would only a few users have problems with email, to me this is pointing to it NOT being an exchange server problem??

These are the major issues I am faced with at the moment. My problem is I was only given this network to administrate on Tuesday this week so I am still finding my way around it and looking at the various configs of it.

Any help will be hugley appriceated!

Thanks!

First off I would config a GC in each physical location. It speeds up the essential replication.

Are the clients DHP or static? If static I would check the DNS servers they are configed for.

One thing I have found is that sometimes a client will be DHCP and at some point someone makes it static for a while then sets it back to DHCP. The odd thing is that if the default gateway was changed then sometimes it "sticks" and is visible greyed out. Don't ask me why this happens but it does. Change to static, (without even adding any details), and then back to DHCP and voila... Fixed. The machine will seem to work right for most things but then will fail on a single issue like net access or something. (This is Win2k BTW - I haven't seen this with XP yet).

Are the sites properly configed in AD Sites and Services?

You might have a couple too many DC's there for anly 80 clients but I would warn against demoting any until you have a good grasp of the network.

Thanks TS!

I was under the impression that you could only have one GC per domain but I will definatley go with you and config a GC per site!

All the clients should be configured for DHCP but I haven't had chance to to check each work station yet. With the state the network is in i wouldnt suprise me to have a bit of both! Is there an easier way to change any work stations that or configured for static IP addressing without having to go to each one and change it manualy?

I was thinking there is too many DC for that domain but am very reluctant to change it at the moment!

The sites seem to be configured properly in sites and services - should all DC's replicate to and from each other?

Thanks for your help!

IIRC DC's replicate in a round robin fashion.

GC's should be configed in each site because GC's replicate essential info such as password changes, user additions etc. immediately rather than waiting for the scheduled replication between DC's which, depending on your Sites and Services setup could be only at night for example - the default is 30 mins IIRC.

Do you have the appropriate DC's in their appropriate sites? If not it will badly affect replication because the domain will be "confused".

You could scribble a VBScript for a startup script but I would strongly suggest that you go and look at every workstation anyway if you had a dimwit in charge before. There's no telling what he might have done.

Thanks mate,

Quote:

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Do you have the appropriate DC's in their appropriate sites? If not it will badly affect replication because the domain will be "confused".

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I have never had to change anyone elses AD setup before as I have always set them up from scratch myself so i'm not to sure how to check this.
What would you say is the best way to check that all the individual work stations are using their local DC and not one located in a different site all together and how can I change the workstations to use a different DC so I can remove a DC completley?

I think I wll need to go around every PC manually to give them all a check over! This guy doesnt even have a network diagram for me to look at so I am having to manualy find all the different sites/ip addresses/gateways/dns servers etc!

In Sites and services just make sure the appropriate DC's are assigned to the appropriate sites for their physical location. That will ensure the most efficient replication. If you do go ahead and remove a DC you shouldn't need to worry about the clients. There may be a short period where the DC remains in their "memory" but once they find they can't talk to it they will move on to the remaining DC's quite quickly.

The clients will use whatever DC they damned well please as far as I can tell but they usually will find the closest one on their own. I would just check the clients for the appropriate network setup and that they are properly connected to the domain.

Superb, thanks for your help TS!

Hi

As per your problem that you don't have useful information
on the network.

This may be like breaking a butterfly on a wheel,
however I like it (for reporting, not to build the
packages ...): Do you have the SMS server in place? :)

Then you could create a report like

Code:

---

Select Sys.Netbios_Name0, NETW.IPAddress0,
          NETW.DefaultIPGateway0, NETW.DHCPServer0,
          NETW.IPSubnet0, NETW.MACAddress0 
FROM v_R_System Sys
JOIN v_GS_NETWORK_ADAPTER_CONFIGUR NETW ON NETW.ResourceID=Sys.ResourceID
WHERE Sys.Netbios_Name0 like @variable
ORDER BY Sys.Netbios_Name0

---

or something similar. You immediately know the Network-Configuration
of each machine, in particular whether it has its IP from a DHCP or
static. You can check in detail the state of each machine, installed
software etc....it may not be cheap though, and sometimes, you need
to be patient :) ...although I like to go in for sports, I would like to avoid
to go to every single pc.

Cheers :)