Backing up and restoring Active Directory
To avoid a situation where Active Directory, the backbone of every Microsoft-oriented networking infrastructure, is irreversibly lost, Active Directory backups should be performed. Additionally, restores should be performed regularly in an isolated networking environment to ensure backups can be restored and procedures are up to date and familiar to admins.
This recipe shows how to create backups of Active Directory using Windows Backup.
Getting ready
To make a backup of a domain controller, sign in to the domain controller with a user account that is a member of the Domain Admins group or the Backup Operators group.
To restore a domain controller, you need to know the Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) password for the domain controller.
The Windows Backup feature needs to be installed. Use the following PowerShell one-line in an elevated PowerShell window to do so:
Install-WindowsFeature Windows-Server-Backup
To avoid...
