Active Directory

[SBSP]

Do anyone know of an easy way to backup Active Directory User accounts ?

Ive got a Primary and secondary AD server which replicates one another.
But thats not safe enough i would like to back it up on a daily basis to file to be stored on tape ?

[RuadRauFlessa]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 27048.aspx

http://www.tech-faq.com/backup-active-directory.shtml

http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... 8&oe=utf-8

[SBSP]

Ive seen those, it all involved replicating then backup the system state (which i dont trust)

What if its a new server after the building burnt down, surely a system state wont work.

All i want is some kind of extract to file then backup.

They also mention using NTbackup, I dont know how that will backup AD data.

[RuadRauFlessa]

NTBackup backs up domain information with the system state. That is one of your only options. There are some commercial tools which you can be used but I know very little about them and won't know if any of them are actually worth it.

http://www.handybackup.net/active-direc ... ckup.shtml

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/down ... _software/

[SBSP]

Maybe i should replicate to secondary active directory on a virtual machine.
Cus then i can just backup the whole Image and load it onto any computer if i ever had to.
Will be a waste of space thou, how much space would a Server 2003 install need ? 2GB

[RuadRauFlessa]

Maybe i should replicate to secondary active directory on a virtual machine.
Cus then i can just backup the whole Image and load it onto any computer if i ever had to.
Will be a waste of space thou, how much space would a Server 2003 install need ? 2GB

give it a bit more as you need space for temp files and virtual memory. About 5GB should do it. Oh and don't forget about at least 1GB memory for it to run 1/2 decent

[SBSP]

Ouch!.

It is a waste of space, the memory part is ok, the server has 4GB in it already its one of those old HP DL140's


The guy who helped me to upgrade our old AD to a new AD used Fluxbox to back up our AD info to a Virtual Image running on Linux (VMware) then once we promoted the new and demoted the old we replicated from the Fluxbox machine back to the new AD.

Its stupid that MS don't have a proper dedicated way to backup AD accounts

[RuadRauFlessa]

You could probably backup the ad databases if you take the services down and they are no longer in use. You could try it but before taking it to a live system I would advise you to test it in a test environment. Wouldn't want to base your faith on something which might not want to work.

[SBSP]

I think AD accounts especially cus it contains passwords and GPO's are sensitive to just copy over from one machine
to another and i'm sure kerberos, tickets and certificate encryption all play a role in this.
But then again you can assign a user from a different domain to any Exchange mailbox .EDB database.

I cant stop the services on a regular basis cus people who travel out the country in complete different time zones or even after hours use Outlook web access to get their mail and that authenticates via LDAP to the AD.

Edit.

But wait i have 2 ad's i could stop the secondary AD then backup
Goin to give that a try thanks

[RuadRauFlessa]

But wait i have 2 ad's i could stop the secondary AD then backup
Goin to give that a try thanks