Re: Backing up a Windows AD DC with samba-tool

On 4/8/26 5:18 AM, itdept_head via samba wrote:
> It is perfectly safe to backup a shutdown AD, as long as it is a single entity.
> If it is more than one then you shut down the "slaves" first ,then the current "master" & back them all up. (the master goes down last, so it stays the master for timestamps)
>
> Then restart the master (time sync) then slaves , so it just looks like a network outage.
> To restore you MUST shut them all down and restore them all ,or things will break very very very badly (timestamps will be all over the place)
>
> I generally do this once a week for the last  8 years.
>
> And I have done several test restores as well as at least one  full 3 site recovery and it was fine.
> It only goes bad if you try and get smart.
>
> The first issue you will have , is with a restore, that the clocks are "bad" and on initial restore the certs issued to clients are bad, until the times all sync
> (keeping in mind that if it is a VM, it's gonna screw with your network clocks , so its better to pull the network cables, until it catches up.)
>
> It's not something you should be doing  randomly, for recovery from small changes.
> Get the master up first, ideally off the network if it's being used as a time server (which it should be anyway...)
>
>
>
> On 6/4/2026, 2:33 AM, "samba on behalf of Peter Milesson via samba" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> on behalf of [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
>
> Is it possible to back up a Windows 2022 AD DC with samba-tool? And how
> could I restore it, if it's possible?
>
>
> Running "sudo samba-tool domain backup online --targetdir=/home/<some
> user>/<backupdir> --server=DC1.mydomain.talps -UAdministrator" gives me
> 2 compressed archives, one with the domain data, and one with sysvol
> information.
>
>
> The reason I ask is, that backing up the domain of a AD DC under Windows
> take ages, while the Samba version finishes within a few seconds.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Peter
>
>
Thanks for your input itdept, but that's not really what I have got in mind.

Best regards,

Peter



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