Transferring FSMO Roles in Windows 2008 Server

One of many system administrator roles is be to upgrade a current domain controller to a new hardware server. You use Windows Server 2003 Server for years and now it’s time to use a new Windows Server 2008 Server. “One” of the steps that required to successfully migrating your domain controller is to be able to successfully transfer the FSMO roles to the new Hardware Windows 2008 Server. While Active Directory in general uses a multimaster replication scheme for replicating the directory database between domain controllers, there are certain directory functions that require they be performed on some specific domain controller. These functions are defined by flexible single master operations (FSMO) roles. There are five different FSMO roles and they each play a different function in Active Directory:

• PDC Emulator
• RID Master
• Infrastructure Master
• Schema Master
• Domain Naming Master

A.Let’s start transferring the FSMO roles and first the Active Directory Schema Master.

(Keep in mind that all steps are done on the new Windows Server 2008 machine)

First we need to register the schmmgmt.dll in order to be able to use the Active Directory Schema snap-in.

1. Click Start > Run

2. Type regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll

3. Click ok

4. Click Start > Run, type mmc, then click OK

5. On the MMC > Click File > then click Add/Remove Snap-in.

6. From the left side, under Available Snap-ins, click on Active Directory Schema, then click Add > and then click OK

7. Right click Active Directory Schema, and then click Change Active Directory Domain Controller.

8. On the Change Directory Server, click the domain controller that you want to be the schema master role holder and then click on OK. (In our Case the New Windows 2008 Server)

9. You will receive a warning message that the schema snap-in is not connected to a schema operations master. That’s ok, as we have not yet set this Windows Server 2008 domain controller as a Schema Master Role holder. Click OK.

 

10. In the new console tree, right click Active Directory Schema and then click Operations Master.

11. On the Change Schema Master, you can see the current schema master role holder, and the targeted schema holder as well. Click Change, to Change the schema master holder.

12. Click YES to transfer the role.

13. Click OK

14. As you can see in the below, the current schema master is changed.

  

B. Let’s start transferring now the Domain Naming Master Role

1. Click Start > Administrative Tools > then click Active Directory Domains and Trusts

2. Right click Active Directory Domains and Trusts, and then click Change Active Directory Domain Controller.

3. On the Change Directory Server, click the domain controller that you want to be the Domain Naming master role holder and then click on OK. (In our Case the New Windows 2008 Server)

4. Right click Active Directory Domains and Trusts, and then click Operations Master.

5. On the Operations Master page, we are going to change the Domain Naming role holder, Click Change

6. Click YES to confirm the transfer of the Domain Naming role

7. The role will be transferred and a confirmation message will be displayed. Click OK

C. Let’s start transferring now the RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Master Roles.

1. Click Start > Administrative Tools > then click Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. Right click Active Directory Users and Computers, then click All Tasks > Operations Master.

3. On Operation masters, there is three Tabs, representing three FSMO roles (RID, PDC, Infrastructure). Click Change button under each of these three tabs to transfer the roles.

4. Click yes to confirm the role transfer.

5. The role will be transferred and a confirmation message will be displayed. Click OK

6. On the the Infrastructure role, once you click on the Change button you will receive the following message.

By default, when you first install your first Domain Controller, it holds the five roles and beside that it is a Global Catalog. At any time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the infrastructure master in each domain. The infrastructure master is responsible for updating references from objects in its domain to objects in other domains. The infrastructure master compares its data with that of a global catalog. Global catalogs receive regular updates for objects in all domains through replication, so the global catalog data will always be up to date. If the infrastructure master finds data that is out of date, it requests the updated data from a global catalog. The infrastructure master then replicates that updated data to the other domain controllers in the domain.

Important

• Unless there are only one or two domain controllers in the domain, the infrastructure master role should not be assigned to the domain controller that is hosting the global catalog. If the infrastructure master and global catalog are on the same domain controller, the infrastructure master will not function. The infrastructure master will never find data that is out of date, so it will never replicate any changes to the other domain controllers in the domain.
• In the case where all of the domain controllers in a domain are also hosting the global catalog, all of the domain controllers will have the current data and it does not matter which domain controller holds the infrastructure master role.

Click Yes

That's it!!!!!

You have successfully transferred the five FSMO roles to the new Windows Server 2008 Domain Controller.