Active Directory Cookbook

17.6. Verifying Application Partitions Are Instantiated on a Server Correctly

Problem

You want to verify that an application partition is instantiated on a replica server. After you add a domain controller as a replica server for an application partition, the data in the application partition needs to fully replicate to that domain controller before it can be used on that domain controller.

Solution

Using a command-line interface

Use the following command to determine if there are any problems with application partitions on a domain controller:

> dcdiag /test:checksdrefdom /test:verifyreplicas /test:crossrefvalidation /s:[RETURN]
<DomainControllerName>

Tip

These tests are valid only with the Windows Server 2003 version of dcdiag.

Discussion

The dcdiag CheckDSRefDom, VerifyReplicas, and CrossRefValidation tests can help determine if an application partition has been instantiated on a server and if there are any problems with it. Here is the dcdiag help information for those three tests:

CrossRefValidation

This test looks for cross-referencess that are in some way invalid.

CheckSDRefDom

This test checks that all application directory partitions have appropriate security descriptor reference domains.

VerifyReplicas

This test verifies that all application directory partitions are fully instantiated on all replica servers.

Another way you can check to see if a certain application partition has been instantiated on a domain controller yet is to look at the msDS-HasInstantiatedNCs attribute for ...