View Replication Metadata of an Object

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Displays the replication metadata for a specified object stored in Active Directory, such as attribute ID, version number, originating and local Update Sequence Number (USN), and originating server's globally unique identifier (GUID) and date and time stamp. By comparing the replication metadata for the same object on different domain controllers, an administrator can determine whether replication has occurred.

Syntax

repadmin /showobjmeta <DC_LIST> <ObjectDN> [/nocache] [/linked]

Parameters

Definitions

<DC_LIST>

Specifies the host name of a domain controller or a list of domain controllers separated by a space that the object will be replicated to. For details about DC_LIST, see repadmin /listhelp.

<ObjectDN>

Specifies the distinguished name of the object.

/nocache

Specifies that GUIDs are left in hexadecimal form. By default, GUIDs are translated into strings.

/linked

Displays metadata associated with, but not stored with, the specified object.

Example 1: Metadata of a group object

In this example, we are viewing the metadata of a group object (Domain Admins) and therefore the forward links (members) are listed as well.

repadmin /showobjmeta

Example 2: Comparing replication metadata of a user object between two domain controllers

A domain administrator has restricted user Lee’s logon hrs. Lee claims he could still log on during restricted hours from BRANCH3 as opposed to other branch offices. The domain administrator could easily figure whether this is related to Active Directory replication latencies by comparing the replication metadata of Lee’s account.

repadmin /showobjmeta

Figure 3.4.2 is the metadata of Lee from HUB domain controller (where the change was made) and Figure 3.4.3 is the metadata from the BRANCH3 domain controller. The attribute logonHours has been highlighted for clarity.

BRANCH-HUB-BH has version 2, last Orig. time/date is 2005-01-06 01:19:59 and Orig.USN as 20654.

BRANCH3 is still on version 1, last Orig. time/date is 2005-01-06 00:52:03 and Orig.USN as 20578 and hence the logon succeeds in BRANCH3 because that domain controller has not yet replicated the update.

repadmin /showobjmeta