Recovery Manager for AD Disaster Recovery Edition 10.0.1 - User Guide

Running custom scripts while recovering a forest

You can configure Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition to automatically run your custom scripts on the Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition computer before, after, or during the recovery operation.

Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition is supplied with a Microsoft Windows Script (.wsf) file serving as a template where you can insert your custom scripts written in the VBScript or JScript language. The file name is ConsoleSideScripting.wsf, and you can find it in the Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition installation folder (by default, this is %ProgramFiles%\Quest\Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition).

The .wsf file has a number of XML elements where you can insert your scripts. Each XML element in the .wsf file provides a description explaining when the script inserted that element will run. Depending on where you inserted your script, it will run:

• Before the recovery operation starts in the current project.
• Each time before the restore from backup operation starts on a domain controller in the current project.
• After the restore from backup operation completes on all domain controllers in the current project.
• Before the reinstall Active Directory operation starts in the current project.
• Each time before the reinstall Active Directory operation starts on a domain controller in the current project.
• Each time the reinstall Active Directory operation completes on a domain controller in the current project.
• After the recovery operation completes in the current project.

To configure Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition to automatically run your scripts

1. Locate the file ConsoleSideScripting.wsf in the Recovery Manager for Active Directory Disaster Recovery Edition installation folder, and open the file in a text editor.
2. In the file, read the descriptions provided for the XML elements to identify the ones where you want to insert your script, then insert your script as appropriate.

Overview of steps to recover a forest

To recover your Active Directory forest

1. Open the recovery project you created for your environment.

For more information, see Opening a recovery project.

2. Use the Active Directory logs to determine the forest failure date.
3. Select appropriate backups for the domain controllers in your project. Make sure you use backups that were created before the point in time when the forest failure occurred.

For more information on how to select backups for the recovery, see Selecting backups for recovery.

4. Verify the settings specified in your recovery project.

For more information, see Specifying recovery project settings.

5. Verify the recovery settings specified for each domain controller in your recovery project:
   1. Use the list of domain controllers in the Forest Recovery Console to select the domain controller whose settings you want to verify.
   2. Open the Settings tab, and then verify the specified recovery settings. If necessary, adjust the settings as needed.
   3. Repeat these steps for each domain controller in the project.

For more information about forest recovery methods, see Forest recovery methods.

6. On the toolbar, click Start Recovery to start the recovery operation on your project.

Viewing forest recovery progress

While performing a forest recovery operation, you can use the Forest Recovery Console to monitor the recovery progress of each domain controller in the project.

To view the recovery progress for a domain controller

1. In the Forest Recovery Console, use the list of domain controllers to select the domain controller whose recovery progress you want to view.
2. Open the Progress tab to view the recovery operation progress.

Viewing recovery plan

Before you start recovering your Active Directory forest, you can generate and view a recovery plan for the recovery project. The recovery plan reflects the settings specified in your recovery project. For example, you can generate and view the recovery plan after making some changes to the recovery project settings to identify whether these changes will have the effect you want.

Recovery project plan shows the details of each Active Directory domain and site included in your recovery project, such as the total number of domain controllers, the number of domain controllers to be recovered, and the number of domain controllers to be removed from Active Directory during the recovery.

For each domain controller, the recovery plan shows the following:

• Currently selected recovery method.
• DNS servers used by the domain controller before the recovery.
• Current FSMO roles.
• Whether or not the domain controller to be recovered is a global catalog server.
• Applicable recovery alerts and pauses.

To view recovery plan

1. Start the Forest Recovery Console.
2. On the menu bar, click View | Recovery Plan.

To view detailed information about a particular recovery method (that is, the recovery stages and steps the related domain controllers will go through), click the name of that method.

You can use the toolbar in the report window to print or export the recovery plan to a preferred format.