Active Directory: Replicate single Objects between the Domain Controllers

Customer had a request to investigate an critical issue related to objects (attributes) not replicated in Active Directory between the two domain Controller's - HQ and Branch Office that are connected over the WAN link.

To save the Network bandwidth and core services, AD replication schedule is set to replicated every 8 hours (Too high and don't ask me why it is 8 hours - Face palm moment)  and this was the cause that the objects were not reflected in the branch site.

The cool command that is supported in Windows 2012R2, Repadmin command-line tool includes this sweet little feature that we can use to replicate data between the two domain controllers even if it's outside the schedule.

This is also useful when troubleshooting replication problems between the sites.

The switch is "repadmin /replsingleobj"  (In the previous edition of Windows Servers the command was replsingleobject however this has been shortened to replsingleobj).

Complete command:

C:\Repadmin /replsingleobj SourceDC DestinationDC ObjectDN

Object Distinguish Name follows the LDAP DN rules. Example is User Name JamesBovik created in HR OU of Corp.Customer.com Domain will be DN: CN=JamesBovik,OU=HR,DC=Corp,DC=Customer,DC=com.

Note if the DN has any spaces in it, please include usual quotes.

Example with the syntax:

repadmin /replsingleobj DC1.corp.customer.com DC2.corp.customer.com CN=JamesBovik,OU=HR,DC=Corp,DC=Customer,DC=com.