Re: Refreshing Active Directory in Test Lab

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DJO wrote:
We are testing Active Directory account provisioning in our lab and I
was hoping for some suggestions and best practices regarding
refreshing AD.

The lab will have two Windows 2003 DCs. My plan was to take one DC
offline line as an AD baseline. We would then run our account
provisioning tests. After each test we would like to go back to the AD
baseline.

Maybe the following is obvious but I cannot be sure from
your sentence above so 'just in case':

BEFORE you return the baseline server to the network you will
remove the EXISTING DC by either using DCPromo or re-installing
the OS (I prefer the former unless there is a good reason.)

Also note that you may have to putz around with NTDSUtil to remove
the abandoned DC accounts (both when you go offline to the lab
originally, when you move one of the two offline, and when you
have removed the active test machine and return the offline-baseline
back to the net.)

Would the above be the best way to proceed?

Any suggestions or links would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave
.

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