Global Catalog cannot be found

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Guest

I have 3 different domain controllers on my network. All three says that they
cannot find the global catalog. We have tried only having having one domain
controller at a time live on the network and telling it to become a gc server
but all you get is a message in the log file saying that server1 has not
finished becoming a global catalog server. I have been told that it should
take as little as 5 minutes for a domain controller to become a gc server. We
have waited as long as 2 days and that is the same message you get in the
log file. If a server or servers will not become a gc server and the network
will not find a gc server how would you go about getting a gc server back
online.
 
Hi Dennis,

By default, the GC is the first DC in the forest.

This is likely to be a DNS issue. To resolve the problem, stop and restart
the Netlogon service on the GC to force registration of the GC in DNS.

Dennis - For more information look at on how Windows 2000 Active Directory
and DNS: DNS Registrations for Global Catalog Servers
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/technologies/ac
tivedirectory/deploy/prodspecs/addnsgc.mspx

Thanks,

(e-mail address removed)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Dennis, I would agree that this is probably a DNS issue.
Check in your forward lookup zone under the "_msdcs" folder and you should
see an _GC folder. Check there for the proper records.
My first question would be is this the only domain in the forest. To become
a GC a DC will need to contact all the domains for a partial copy of their
domain database.
You should see events in the DS event log that report the problem. If you
are getting the message that is something along the lines of waiting 30 min
then you probably want to start over clean.
One problem that I have seen is if a GC attempts to source from a machine
that is advertising as a GC but is not completed and displayed an event 1119
in the DS event log.

What I would recommend is put all 3 DCs on the network and ensure that they
can communicate and replicate. Uncheck the GC on all 3 and ensure that they
each provide an event saying they are no longer a GC. ( i think its a 1110)
Once that is done, reboot each DC one at a time and ensure that they come up
completly before moving to the next. This should cause the GC records in
DNS to be de-registered. But that might be something you want to verify.
Once that is complete, then choose one DC and re-check the GC box. If this
is a single domain environment then it you should see a 1119 event after 5
minutes.
 
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