Renaming a Domain Controller

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You can use netdom to rename any computer, including a domain controller:

However this will leave the attribute msDS-AdditionalDnsHostName with the old name. Check this in ADUC attribute editor (or ADSIEDIT.msc):

Remove the old name and restart.

PS. This fixes not being able to re-use the old name on another computer. You get the error The operation failed because SPN value provided for addition/modification is not unique forest-wide, and you will see the old domain name when you run setspn -l <oldname>. Performing the above attribute changes fixes this.

18 thoughts on “Renaming a Domain Controller

  1. Vincent Timmermans

    Thanks, this saved me.
    Although, I found that on other domain controllers, where I never renamed a DC, the msDS-AdditionalDNSName attribute does not even contain 1 entry. It is simply “not set” at all. So I tried just removing both entries and that worked as well to solve my “SPN value not unique problem.”

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  2. Anonymous

    Saved my bacon!!!
    There’s so much misinformation out there and I was lucky enough to stumble across your post.

    Thank you.

    Reply
  3. Brandon

    Thank you, I was reading a lot of old info stating this couldnt be done so glad to see you posted this. I had renamed a domain controller improperly and SPN’s were being generated from the old name and couldnt trace it down. This saved me a lot of time!

    Reply

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