Recipe 3.28 Finding the PDC Emulator FSMO Role Owner via DNS

3.28.1 Problem

You want to find the PDC Emulator for a domain using DNS.

3.28.2 Solution

3.28.2.1 Using a command-line interface

> nslookup -type=SRV _ldap._tcp.pdc._msdcs.<DomainDNSName>

3.28.3 Discussion

The PDC Emulator FSMO role is the only FSMO role that is stored in DNS. Like many of the other Active Directory-related DNS records, the PDC record is stored as an SRV record under _ldap._tcp.pdc._msdcs.<DomainDNSName> where <DomainDNSName> is the domain the PDC is in.

3.28.4 See Also

Recipe 3.21 for finding domain controllers via DNS