Question : How Do I Specify a Preferred DC

This should be relatively simple, I just haven't found a way to do it:

The scenario is this - I want to have two Domain Controllers in a Windows 2003 environment.  One of the Domain Controllers will be a robust machine and the other will be an old workstation.  I want the more robust machine to handle all authentication requests, unless it is unavailable, in which case the old workstation should take over authentication duties, thus basically acting as a backup DC.

Given that technically all DCs are equal, how do I tell my workstations to authenticate to a specific DC, but if it isn't available, authenticate to the other DC?

Also, what command line can I use to see which server my workstations used to login to?

Answer : How Do I Specify a Preferred DC

Joe,

Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you. Try this, I think it might work. Usually when you have 'sites' they are in different subnets. What you could do is define the sites and just apply all your subnets to the site with the preferred DC. In AD Sites and Services you should have something like 'Default First Site Name' with a list of all your servers underneath it.

Highlight the sites folder, click New Site, and name it. In the first site select the server you want to be secondary and move it to the new site. Under subnets, define your subnet (10.10.10.0/24, for example, i'm guessing you only have one?) and define it as being in the 'default first site name' site.

Under intersite transports, ip, select defaultipsitelink and select properties and make sure both sites are on the right and change your replication to 15 minutes.

Now, have some folks log on and check to see if anyone hits the secondary DC.

hth,
Kris.