Hello guys, here is an annoying issue that has again a very simple fix. I’ve noticed that most fixes are very simple, haven’t you?
I was doing a project for this client where he wanted two Domain Controllers in Azure to replicate with their onsite DCs over a site-to-site link. Everything was nice and dandy. We get the site-to-site up, spin a couple of VMs in Azure, install the ADDS role and start the DC promotion.
Everything is going fine, we’re happy, drinking coffee and doughnuts and then we’re hit with, yes, brace yourself, an error!!
The following error:
An error occurred while trying to configure this machine as a Domain Controller.
Active Directory Domain Services could not replicate the directory partition XX from the remote Active Directory Domain Controller. The remote procedure call was cancelled.
So now it’s time to put the coffee down and start digging since the error is very ambiguous.
We go into Event Viewer and see that we have an error with and ID of 1818.
Now I will save you a lot of time searching Google and trying to dig further by explaining to you what the issue is. The issue is high latency between the two sites and the first time replication of the Configuration schema is timing out.
Now for the simple solution: we will need to increase the timeout of the RPC connection.
To do that we will need to go in regedit then go to
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTDS.
Then create a new key called Parameters.
Then create a new DWORD called RPC Replication Timeout (mins) and give it a value of let’s say 45 minutes.
Now we restart the server, give the dcpromo another shot and… surprise, surprise! It finishes without any issues.
Hope you enjoyed the article. If you did, come back for more.
