Repadmin - THE tool of Kings

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So, you are having trouble with Active Directory eh?  wondering what great secrets Microsoft have for troubleshooting AD? 

 When I first started to work for the big M, I was expecting to get a load of tools that would help me troubleshoot AD, tools that only the big M would have access to...  what dissappointment!  the big M's tool of choice for troubleshooting AD is... yes you guessed it... REPADMIN!!!!!

 "You what?"  I hear you cry?  well its the truth. The power of this tool is unsurpassed, the biggest challenge is trying to get people to understand how to use it properly and of course, understanding the output is a whole different challenge.

" How can you help me Mark?"  I hear you cry!!!..   Well... read on..

 Repadmin.exe is installed as part of the Windows 2003 resource kit and is something that should be on all servers that you can possibly install it on.  There is a good KB article on the basics of the tool found here https://support.microsoft.com/kb/229896.

 The most interesting parts of this tool are as follows:

/syncall <Dest DSA> [<Naming Context>] [<flags>]
/kcc [DSA] [/async]
/istg [DSA]
/showreps [Naming Context] [DSA [Source DSA objectGuid]] [/verbose] [/unreplicated] [/nocache]
/showobjmeta [DCA] <Object DN>
/replicate [source DC] [dest DC] [NC]
/replsum
/queue [DSA]
/failcache [DSA]
/showbackup

 Please take some time to review the capabilities of these switches, you will be surprise about what you can achieve.  When I get another 5 minutes, I will explore each switch one by one and look at how it can be used in production. 

Please note, that the above switches are not the only capability in repadmin, but just the switches that I use more often than not.

 An additional note is that the total number of switches have been extended in windows 2008, so get playing!.   Expect an update to my Windows 2008 section soon with a review of the new switches.

Some of these switches have already been blogged about my my great friend and collegue Jane Lewis, have a look at this blog https://blogs.technet.com/janelewis