{"id":38,"date":"2015-09-18T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/?p=38"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:41:17","slug":"check-if-two-domain-controllers-are-in-sync","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/?p=38","title":{"rendered":"Check if two domain controllers are in-sync"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>PROBLEM: <\/strong>You need to check if two domain controllers are in sync with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>SOLUTION:<\/strong> To do this you need to understand a bit about how Active Directory reports if a domain controller replication is in sync. There is something called a UTDV up-to-dateness vector that is basically a number representing what the domain controller thinks the latest version of the active directory database is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you interrogate DC01 and that thinks itself has a USN (I.e the UTDV) of 1552480, you then interrogate DC02 and that thinks DC01 USN is: 1552480 then you can conclude that both the domain controllers are in-sync.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So to check this you would run the commands below each domain controller DC01 and DC02 in turn to check the status:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">repadmin \/showutdvec DC01 dc=domain,dc=local<br>SITE1\\DC01 @ USN 1552480 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:09:30<br>SITE2\\DC02 @ USN 1438130 @ Time 2011-02-13 12:57:31<br>repadmin \/showutdvec DC02 dc=domain,dc=local<br>SITE1\\DC01 @ USN 1552123 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:03:29<br>SITE2\\DC02 @ USN 1438145 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:57:31<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So in this example, the USNs (up to date-ness vectors) are not the same, so the domain controllers are no in sync. DC01 thinks its USN (UTDV) is 1552480 while DC02 thinks that DC01&#8217;s USN is: 1552123. Now in the example below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">repadmin \/showutdvec DC01 dc=domain,dc=local<br>SITE1\\DC01 @ USN 1552505 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:18:40<br>SITE2\\DC02 @ USN 1438188 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:15:37<br>repadmin \/showutdvec DC02 dc=domain,dc=local<br>SITE1\\DC01 @ USN 1552505 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:16:37<br>SITE2\\DC02 @ USN 1438224 @ Time 2011-02-13 13:19:31<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DC01 thinks its USN is: 1552505, and DC02 thinks that is also 1552505 too. Meaning they are in sync.<br>However you&#8217;ll notice that DC01 thinks that DC02 USN is: 1438188 while DC02 thinks its USN is: 1438224, because DC02 has a higher USN that DC01 it means there are un-replicated changes waiting to go from DC02 to DC01.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PROBLEM: You need to check if two domain controllers are in sync with each other. SOLUTION: To do this you need to understand a bit about how Active Directory reports if a domain controller replication is in sync. There is something called a UTDV up-to-dateness vector that is basically a number representing what the domain &#8230; <a title=\"Check if two domain controllers are in-sync\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/?p=38\" aria-label=\"Read more about Check if two domain controllers are in-sync\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-directory","category-microsoft-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5208,"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/5208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geekmungus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}