Preparing the Forest
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.
Preparing the Active Directory forest for Office Communications Server in a command-line environment provides the following actions:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
ForestPrep |
Prepare a forest through the creation of objects, containers, and extended property rights. Creates universal groups for Office Communications Server user and server administration. |
CheckForestPrepState |
Check those actions to ensure the forest is properly prepared. |
ForestUnprep |
Remove the actions back to the forests original state. |
CheckAllDomainsPrepState |
Check all domains after several domains have been prepared for an Office Communications Server deployment. |
All actions require forest Enterprise Admins or root Domain Admins credentials. The SchemaPrep actions should be successfully completed before beginning this task.
When you run LCSCmd.exe, the command automatically discovers the global catalog server and primary domain controllers. If you experience problems because these servers are unavailable or network connectivity is poor, you can use optional parameters to specify the global catalog server or domain controllers to use instead. For more information, see Optional LCSCmd.exe Parameters for Domain Controller and Global Catalog Server Discovery later in this document.
Similarly, if connectivity to the root domain is unreliable, when you run the ForestPrep action, specify the configuration partition as the value for the /Global parameter because activation of server roles requires access to the root domain (where the global settings are stored). Access to the root domain is also necessary for the server to function properly, unless you select Configuration partition.
ForestPrep Action
The following command runs the ForestPrep action. If the /GroupDomain parameter is not specified, the value will default to the local domain:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest[:<forest FQDN>] /Action:ForestPrep
Such as:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest /Action:ForestPrep
Use the same command, but with the /Global syntax, to specify global settings as follows:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest /Action:ForestPrep [/Global:{system|configuration}] [/GroupDomain :<FQDN of the domain to create the universal groups in>]
Such as:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest /Action:ForestPrep /Global:system
A successful ForestPrep action will produce a result similar to the example depicted in Figure 1 (except for the different parameters) and the respective log file as depicted in Figure 2.
CheckForestPrepState Action
Maintaining the same Forest Enterprise Admins or root Domain Admins credentials used in the previous task, check that the ForestPrep action was successful by running the following action:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest[:<forest FQDN>] /Action:CheckForestPrepState
Such as:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest /Action:CheckForestPrepState
A successful action will produce a result similar to the example depicted in Figure 1 (except for the different parameters) and the respective log file as depicted in Figure 2.
ForestUnprep Action
ForestUnprep removes prior Office Communications Server forest preparations such as objects, containers, extended property rights, and so forth. The following command runs the ForestUnprep action:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest[:<forest FQDN>] /Action:ForestUnprep
Such as:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest:contoso.com /Action:ForestUnprep
ForestUnprep will not proceed if any previously prepared child domains exist on the forest root. Using the /Force switch will make ForestUnprep proceed; however all deployed Office Communications Servers will stop functioning. Use the following syntax and parameters to force a ForestUnprep action:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest[:<forest FQDN>] /Action:ForestUnprep [/Force[:{TRUE|FALSE}]]
Such as:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest:contoso.com /Action:ForestUnprep /Force
For more information about forest actions, such as adding pools or creating global settings, see Preparing Enterprise Pools for Office Communications Server.
CheckAllDomainsPrepState Action
The CheckAllDomainsPrepState action verifies that all Domains and their respective connections, objects, groups, permissions and so forth, were successfully prepared. Run the LCSCmd.exe action as follows:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest[:<forest FQDN>] /Action:CheckAllDomainsPrepState
Such as:
LCSCmd.exe /Forest /Action:CheckAllDomainsPrepState