Active Directory Replication Monitor

REPLMON.EXE: Active Directory Replication Monitor

• Display status of domain controllers.
• The Active Directory Replication Monitor tool enables administrators to view the low-level status of Active Directory replication, force synchronization between domain controllers, view the topology in a graphical format, and monitor the status and performance of domain controller replication through a graphical interface. The Active Directory Replication Monitor is a graphical tool located on the Tools menu within Windows 2000 Support Tools.
• Active Directory Replication Monitor Features
  Some of the key features of the Active Directory Replication Monitor are
  • Graphic displays - Replication Monitor displays whether or not the monitored server is a global catalog server, automatically discovers the directory partitions that the monitored server hosts, graphically displays this breakdown, and shows the replication partners that are used for inbound replication for each directory partition. Replication Monitor distinguishes between direct replication partners, transitive replication partners, bridgehead servers, and servers removed from the network in the user interface. Failures from a specific replication partner are indicated by a change in the icon used for the partner.
  • Replication status history - The history of replication status per directory partition, per replication partner is recorded, generating a granular history of what occurred between two domain controllers. This history can be viewed through Replication Monitor's user interface or can be viewed offline or remotely through a text editor.
  • Property pages - For direct replication partners, a series of property pages displays the following for each partner: the name of the domain controller, its globally unique identifier (GUID), the directory partition that it replicates to the monitored server, the transport used (remote procedure call [RPC] or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol [SMTP] and distinguishes between intra- and inter-site when RPC is used), the time of the last successful and attempted replication events, update sequence number (USN) values, and any special properties of the connection between the two servers.
  • Status report generation - Administrators can generate a status report for the monitored server that includes a listing of the directory partitions for the server, the status of each replication partner (direct and transitive) for each directory partition, detail on which domain controllers the monitored server notifies when changes have been recorded, the status of any group policy objects (GPOs), the domain controllers that hold the Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles, a snapshot of the performance counters on the computer, and the registry configuration of the server (including parameters for the Knowledge Consistency Checker [KCC], Active Directory, Jet database, and LDAP). Additionally, the administrator can also choose to record (in the same report) the enterprise configuration, which includes each site, site link, site link bridge, subnet, and domain controller (regardless of domain) and the properties of each type of object just mentioned. For example, for the domain controller properties, this records the GUID that makes up the Domain Name System (DNS) record that is used in replication, the location of the computer account in Active Directory, the inter-site mail address (if it exists), the host name of the computer, and any special flags for the server (whether or not it is a global catalog server). This can be extremely helpful when troubleshooting an Active Directory replication problem.
  • Server Wizard - With Server Wizard, administrators can either browse for the server to monitor or explicitly enter it. The administrator can also create an .ini file, which predefines the names of the servers to monitor, which is then loaded by Replication Monitor to populate the user interface.
  • Graphical site topology - Replication Monitor displays a graphical view of the intra-site topology and, by using the context menu for a given domain controller in the view, allows the administrator to quickly display the properties of the server and any intra- and inter-site connections that exist for that server.
  • Properties display - Administrators can display the properties for the monitored server including the server name, the DNS host name of the computer, the location of the computer account in Active Directory, preferred bridgehead status, any special flags for the server (for example, if it is the Primary Domain Controller [PDC] Emulator for its domain or not), which computers it believes to hold the FSMO roles, the replication connections (Replication Monitor differentiates between administrator and automatically generated connection objects) and the reasons they were created, and the Internet Protocol (IP) configuration of the monitored server.
  • Statistics and replication state polling - In Automatic Update mode, Replication Monitor polls the server at an administrator-defined interval to get the current statistics and replication state. This feature generates a history of changes for each monitored server and its replication partners and allows the administrator to see topology changes as they occur for each monitored server. In this mode, Replication Monitor also monitors the count of failed replication attempts for each replication partner. If the failure count meets or exceeds an administrator-defined value, it can write to the event log and send an e-mail notification to the administrator.
  • Replication triggering - Administrators can trigger replication on a server with a specific replication partner, with all other domain controllers in the site, or all other domain controllers intra- and inter-site.
  • KCC triggering - Administrators can trigger the KCC on the monitored server to recalculate the replication topology.
  • Display nonreplicated changes - Administrators can display, on demand, Active Directory changes that have not yet replicated from a given replication partner.