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Add a computer account to AD Sites?

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by tpcosmo

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I am struggling with a problem with my win 2000 network, and win 2000 clients' logon process. For some reason some win 2000 clients will authenticate to a DC over a slow WAN link, when a very free DC is available. The login process will take about 5min to complete in that case! Everything I read about this problem points to adding the user account, and the computer account in AD to Sites and services section of AD. The porblem lies in that when I try to use the 'move' function in AD Users/Comps, Sites/Services containers arent available to place the account into. From Sites/Services and selecting the 'add' function, it only has DC's in the list. Does anybody know how to add a user or computer to AD sites/services?

6 replies

by matt duggan

OK, here's a starting point for you...

Sites and services use subnets to figure out where you are. You'll need to create "sites" that define your subnets for the various sites. As you have discovered, Domain Controllers are then assigned to those"sites". Workstations and Member Servers just belong to sites naturally, based on their IP address.

AD will use these sites, along with the links you define, to decide which box is best suited to authenticating you at any given time.

Think of sites simply as subnets (even if they happen to be groups of multiple subnets), and you'll be a lot closer to getting it to work.

(Obviously, users don't have IP addresses, so they don't have any real role in the sites setup).

by tpcosmo

Thanks a lot for your comments Matt. I already have created the sites, and have defined the links between them. Then I assigned a DC to each site, with one site having two DC's. As I mentioned in my question my problem is with authentication over a WAN. I have win 2000, and XP clients that will authenticate with a server in a different site over slow WAN lines when there are two free DC's in the same building. It seems as though AD has decided that the box best suited to authenticate with, isnton the same subnet. The problem only occurs about 25% of the time, but its a problem when it does. Any other suggestions are very welcome.....

by timwalsh

First, you cannot move Users or Computers into AD Sites and Services.
User authentication requires access to a DC acting as a Global Catalog server. If your users are authenticating to a DC over a slow link, that tells me your local DC is not a Global Catalog server. This can be fixed

by timwalsh

In the AD Sites and Services container, locate and highlight your server. Right click on the NTDS Settings container under your server and open Properties. You will find a check box for Global Catalog. Checking this make your local DC another Global Catalog within the site.

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