Which Domain Controller has the FSMO Information

domain check fsmo

Have you ever needed to know which domain controller has the FSMO entries? For instance, as you are upgrading your domain to 2008R2, its important to move these entries from the old 2003 Server before you attempt to decommission it. Although you can get this information from the GUI, there is no one screen with this information collected together. Here is a DOS command that gives you all the information quickly. You can run this on any domain connected machine, as long as you are logged in with sufficient credentials.

  1. Get FSMO information from domain ABC:
    • Start | Run | cmd (opens the command line interface)
    • netdom query /domain ABC fsmo (replace ABC with your domain name)
    • exit (closes command line interface)

Your output should contain one line per FSMO role. Need to know what the roles do? Here is a quick reference.

Schema Master: The schema master domain controller controls all updates/modifications.
Domain naming master: Controls the addition or removal of domains in the forest.
Infrastructure Master: Updates references from its domain objects to objects in other domains.
Relative ID (RID) Master: Processes RID pool requests from all domain controllers.
PDC Emulator: Advertises itself as the primary domain controller (PDC) to workstations, member servers, and domain controllers that are running earlier versions of Windows.