Using the Replication Monitor - Page 2
The other submenus of the Action menu aren't as involved as the Server menu. For example, the Site menu simply lets you monitor another server. Likewise, the Naming Context menu only contains options to show change notifications to replication partners and to synchronize the directory partition with replication partners.
As you can see, the Active Directory Replication Monitor is simple to use. However, in spite of the tool's simplicity, it provides a wealth of information and can be invaluable in troubleshooting Active Directory replication problems.
| Creating a Replication Topology |
| The Replication Diagnostic Tool can also be used to establish a replication topology. However, you should never create your own replication topology unless you have a good reason for doing so and know exactly what you're doing, because creating a custom replication topology interferes with the replication topology that Windows creates automatically. Under normal circumstances, the Knowledge Consistency Checker automatically manages the replication topology. Incorrectly using this tool interferes with Windows' built-in ability to manage replication and can even cause replication to stop completely. This article discusses this tool from a diagnostic standpoint. |
Replication Diagnostic Tool
The Replication Diagnostic Tool is a command-line tool that can be used to spot replication problems such as an offline server or a LAN or WAN link that's unavailable. The name of the executable file is REPADMIN.EXE. As you can see in Figure 3, this tool can be a little complicated to use. Although this figure outlines the Replication Diagnostic Tool's syntax, I'll explain how to safely use this tool for diagnostic purposes in Part 3.
Figure 3: The Replication Diagnostic Tool.
| CrossLinks |
|
Conclusion
So far in this series, I've explored several tools that you can use to keep Active Directory healthy, including the Active Directory Administration Tool, the Active Directory Replication Monitor, and the Replication Diagnostic Tool. However, these tools are just the beginningmany others are available. I'll continue discussing the Replication Diagnostic Tool and the additional available tools in Part 3. //
Brien M. Posey is an MCSE who works as a freelance writer. His past experience includes working as the director of information systems for a national chain of health care facilities and as a network engineer for the Department of Defense. Because of the extremely high volume of e-mail that Brien receives, it's impossible for him to respond to every message, although he does read them all.
