6 Essential Tools
After you deploy AD, you need to load your toolbelt with the necessary utilities to solve any problems that occur. The Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit contains many such tools, about 50 of which are also available in the Win2K Server CD-ROM's \support\tools folder. To tackle any replication problems that might arise, you might need to use some of these tools simultaneously.
Event Viewer. Windows' default event-log viewer is available under Start, Programs, Administrative Tools. Event Viewer typically gives your first indication when something goes wrong. In an AD deployment, DCs have a new log called Directory Services. To keep an eye on most replication-related occurrences, you should monitor your DCs' Directory Services logs. Although you can connect to other DCs to view their logs, Event Viewer can display logs for only one server at a time. To obtain a report that contains replication-related event entries from all your DCs, I recommend that you use the Replication Monitor utility.
Replication Monitor. Replmon.exe is a GUI utility that's part of the Win2K Server CD-ROM's Support Tools. You can use Replmon to obtain an overview of replication in your enterprise. You can gather much information from DCs to determine whether replication is occurring, when it's occurring, between which DCs traffic is flowing, and more.
Replmon provides one source for collecting replication-related event-log entries from all your DCs. To launch Replmon, click Start, Run and enter
replmon
The utility opens without populating the interface with any servers. You need to manually add the servers that you want to monitor. A quick way to add servers is to create an .ini file that contains a list of your DCs, one on each line. Then, from the Replmon menu bar, click File, Open Script, navigate to the .ini file you created, and click Open. The interface will display your DCs and the NCs they hold. In the example that Figure 2 shows, I've added the testdc01 server. Underneath the entry for testdc01, you can see the three NCs that this DC holds. To see the tasks that you can use Replmon to perform and that Figure 2 shows, right-click the server name. Familiarize yourself with each of these tasks and the information they can provide in the event that you need to troubleshoot NC replication problems.
One particularly useful Replmon feature is the ability to quickly gather Directory Services event-log entries that are related to replication failures. To launch a separate window from which you can collect this data, go to the Replmon menu bar and click Action, Domain, Search Domain Controllers for Replication Errors. Click Run Search. Replmon prompts you to enter the domain for which you want to perform the search. Enter the DNS domain name, then click OK. The utility queries the domain's DCs and collects errors related to replication failures, displaying the DC on which the error event originated, the affected directory partition or NC, the replication partner involved, and the failure code and reason. Replmon queries each DC individually rather than gathering all the directory information from one DC.
Domain Controller Diagnostics. Dcdiag.exe, a command-line tool that you'll find on the Win2K Server CD-ROM, is a powerful diagnostics tool that provides an enormous amount of data about the DC that you run it on. Dcdiag runs tests against the DC to determine the status of connectivity, replication, topology integrity, user permissions, locator functionality, intersite health, trust verification, the File Replication Service (FRS), and critical services running on the DC.
If you run Dcdiag, be prepared to sift through lots of information. I recommend that you use the syntax
dcdiag > <filename>.txt
to push the output to a text file. You can then open the text file in Notepad or Microsoft Word and browse the information more easily. When you're troubleshooting a problem, scour the log for any failures or error notices that might provide clues about the nature of the problem.
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