There is a way to have your cake and eat it too, however. Take a backup of the DC, then use the install from media (IFM) feature to dcpromo more machines in to the environment using the backup taken as a seed for the dataset. This will allow you to rapidly bring up new DCs without having to re-source all of the info yet still not do damage to your environment (with the definition of "do damage" left out for brevity, as it has been covered on this DL previously if memory serves me correctly).
IFM was added in WS2003 to address scenarios such as this. ~Eric -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Kingslan Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 7:57 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] cloning DC's Tom - Regardless of the scenario and how it's done - you never, never, never, clone DCs. This will lead to very bad things - possibly including the appearance of the Anti-Christ, opening of Black Holes, ABBA coming back to prominence. Do NOT do this. Do NOT allow IBM to do it. Period. Rick -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Kern Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 7:56 PM To: activedirectory Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] cloning DC's I went back and i saw B. Shirley's remarks on cloning dc's. I'm wondering if this applies to my senario below- cloning a DC with Disk Image and sysprep and creating new DC's that way? Is this very very bad? is there an article or paper explaining why? or anyone care to explain why. or is this ok? thanks. sorry to harp but these AD consultants from IBM want to go this route tomorrow and I'm thinking its not a good idea for some reason but I'd like to be sure before i bring it up. Thanks again On 8/17/05, Tom Kern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I know i read this thread before but i can't seem to find it. > > we are creating a new forest root and the IBM consultants here created > the first root dc and now they want to clone it using Disk Image and > sysprep to create the other DC's in the root. > > I think i heard this is a bad idea. Am I right? > > I can't seem to find any article on this but I do remember this being > spoken of on the list and I don't remeber what the conculsion was. > > thanks > List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/