Windows Domain Controller: Create a test environment from a production environment

Posted by Robert Coggins on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Robert Coggins
Published on 2009-10-07T15:50:12Z Indexed on 2010/04/01 17:53 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 709

Filed under:

Windows

|

domain

|

dc

|

active-directory

I need to create a working test environment of a domain we have. I need to have all the data from the production environment in the test environment. What is the best way to go about doing this?

Here are some ideas I have but I am not sure if there is a better/recommended way of doing this.

Use Vmware converter to create a VM of one of the production DCs
create a VM and promo it on the real domain and move the vm to my test environment.
use some kind of backup utility to backup the domain info and restore it to my vm I created.

Thanks in advance for any help!

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about Windows

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about domain

In WHM - Addon Domain Matches Primary Domain From Separate Account - I can't delete the addon domain

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have an account (domian1.com) with the an addon domain (domain2.com) that matches the primary domain (domain2.com) of a separate account. I believe it was created renaming the primary domain of the second account. I want to delete the addon domain from domain1.com. However when I try i get the error: … >>> More
Trust my work domain on a Dev Domain without a domain level password

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I setup a virtual machine to host a dev version of TFS (to test plugins on). Getting a computer on my work domain requires large amounts of red tape and paperwork that I would rather not do. I created my own domain the the VM and I would like to trust all users from my work domain on that VM Domain… >>> More
NFS (with Kerberos) mount failing due to "Server not found in Kerberos database" error

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
When running: `sudo mount -t nfs4 -o sec=krb5 sol.domain.com:/ /mnt` I get this error on the client: mount.nfs4: access denied by server while mounting sol.domain.com:/ And on the server syslogs UNKNOWN_SERVER: authtime 0, nfs/mercury.domain.com@SOL.DOMAIN.COM for nfs/ip-#-#-#-#.ec2.internal@SOL… >>> More
Server 2003 on domain wont let domain user have local profile

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a few servers that are acting in this behavior, you log in and always get put into a temporary profile. The server is licensed for TS. The user I am testing with has local admin rights so it doesn't seem to be a permission issue on the server. I'll first get a message that the users roaming… >>> More
Problem with redirecting *.domain.com & domain.com to www.domain.com for HTTPS

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
We have a site I'll call acme.com. Most of the time you see http://www.acme.com and sometimes we redirect you to https://www.acme.com. We want to redirect anyone going to http://acme.com or http://*.acme.com to http://www.acme.com, and the same for https. (It's mainly to avoid the alert you get if… >>> More