Active Directory Cookbook

13.5. Moving AD-Integrated Zones into an Application Partition

Tip

This recipe requires the Windows Server 2003 domain functional level.

Problem

You want to move AD-integrated zones into an application partition.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

1. Open the DNS Management snap-in.

2. If an entry for the DNS server you want to connect to does not exist, right-click on DNS in the left pane and select Connect to DNS Server. Select This computer or The following computer, enter the server you want to connect to (if applicable), and click OK.

3. Expand the server in the left pane and expand either Forward Lookup Zones or Reverse Lookup Zones depending on the type of zone.

4. Click on the name of the zone.

5. Right-click on the zone and select Properties.

6. Click on the Change button beside Replication.

7. Select the application partition you want to move the zone into.

8. Click OK twice.

Using a command-line interface

The following command will move a zone to the default application partition that replicates across all domain controllers that are DNS servers in the domain:

> dnscmd <DNSServerName> /zonechangedirectorypartition <ZoneName> /domain

Using VBScript

At the time of publication of this book, the DNS WMI Provider did not support programmatically moving a zone into an application partition.

Discussion

With Windows 2000 Active Directory, if you had AD-integrated zones, those zones were replicated to every domain controller in the domain where they were stored. In many cases, not every domain controller also serves ...