My old Svr2003 domain controller is also my DNS and DHCP server (small domain, < 50 users)
Here's what I've done thus far:
- Added new Svr2008 to the domain.
- Prepped domain with adprep (forest and domain)
- Promoted Svr2008 to Domain Controller and installed AD DS.
- Transferred all FSMO roles to new Svr2008 and made Svr2008 a Global Catalog Server as well.
- Confirmed Replication between two domain controllers.
I want to transfer DHCP and DNS to my new Svr2008, decommission Svr2003, and switch the IP address of Svr2008 to match decommissioned Svr2003 (so I don't have to reassign DNS via DHCP). I've also already exported my DHCP to a txt file using netsh dhcp server export _filename_ command and it is ready to be imported when the new DHCP server role is running on the new Svr2008.
My questions is should I do DNS or DHCP first?
I want to make sure I do this in the right order and properly.
Thanks!
Best Answer
There's no problem with both DC's being GC's in a single domain forest, so go ahead and make the new server a GC as a first step. If your AD DNS is AD integrated then no "transfer" of DNS is required, the AD DNS zones will be replicated to the new server as part of the AD replication process. The only thing you'll need to manually transfer is DHCP. You can do this beforehand and authorize the new DHCP server but leave the scope deactivated until you're ready to make the switch. I would recommend that you not give the new server the same ip address as the old server as that's likely to make things flaky because of the DNS records tied to the old ip address of the W2K3 DC. Update your DHCP scope to assign the new server as the primary DNS server for the DHCP clients and manually set it for statically assigned hosts. Once you've done that you can turn off DHCP on the old server and activate the DHCP scope on the new server. After verifying that everything works you can DCPROMO the old server to demote it.