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How to run DCDIAG and NETDIAG on Multiple Computers Using a Batch File

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I was onsite with a customer this week reviewing their Active Directory configuration.  During the visit the system admin I was working with mentioned he needed to run DCDIAG and NETDIAG on every domain controller (DC) in his domain and collect the output to prepare for their upcoming migration to Office 365.  When I got there he was logging into each via terminal services to collect the information.  I recognized these tasks as something we could automate with a simple batch file using a FOR loop so I suggested we spend a few minutes putting the scripts together.

DCDIAG

Running DCDIAG on a remote system is straightforward.  You just run “DCDIAG /s <server>” to test a remote server.  The next thing we needed was a list of all the domain controllers in his domain.  The forest had several domains.  Each domain was administered by a different IT group.  The following command line was used to generate the SERVERS.TXT file we will use to run the script:

DSQUERY SERVER -domain CONTOSO -O RDN >SERVERS.TXT

The following script (GET-DCDIAG.CMD) was used to run DCDIAG on all DCs contained in the SERVERS.TXT file and write to the log file (DCDIAG_OUTPUT.LOG). If you have looked at any of my previous script posts on this blog you will notice I use the same basic script and just modify  couple of lines for the task at hand.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::: BEGIN SCRIPT ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

@ECHO OFF
:: NAME:GET-DCDIAG.CMD
:: DATE: 3/7/2013
:: PURPOSE:  Run DCDIAG on a list of servers
::
:: The SERVERS.TXT contains a list of servers (one server per line)
 
SET LOGFILENAME=DCDIAG_OUTPUT.LOG

ECHO     DATE: %DATE% > %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO     TIME: %TIME% >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO     USER: %USERNAME% >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO COMPUTER: %COMPUTERNAME% >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%

FOR /F "tokens=1" %%i in (servers.txt) DO (
  ECHO ::::::::::::::::::::::  %%i  :::::::::::::::::::::::::: >> %LOGFILENAME%
  ECHO Running command on... %%i
  ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
DCDIAG /s:%%i  >> %LOGFILENAME%
  ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
  ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
)

GOTO EOF

:EOF
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO  %0 COMPLETED!
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::: END SCRIPT :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

NETDIAG

Collecting the NETDIAG information turned out to be more of a challenge.  The first issue we found is that NETDIAG is not supported on Windows Server 2008 and later operating systems and there is no replacement for NETDIAG.  Since most of the DCs were still running Windows Server 2003 this issue was not a show stopper.  The second issue was revealed we ran NETDIAG /? and noticed there was no switch to run the command on a remote server.  Hmmm…now what? 

I remembered a utility in the Sysinternals toolkit (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default ) called PSEXEC that can be used to run commands on a remote system (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553).  We downloaded PSEXEC.EXE and copied the file to our local working directory.  Next we tested the functionality by running PSEXEC \\<server> Hostname  to confirm we had the correct command syntax to retrieve information from a remote computer.  We used the same script template shown above and created a GET-NETDIAG.CMD script to collect the information.  The code is shown below.  We changed the log file name and the a single command line.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::: BEGIN SCRIPT ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

@ECHO OFF
:: NAME:GET-NETDIAG.CMD
:: DATE: 3/7/2013
:: PURPOSE:  Run NETDIAG on a list of servers
::
:: The SERVERS.TXT contains a list of servers (one server per line)
 
SET LOGFILENAME=NETDIAG_OUTPUT.LOG

ECHO     DATE: %DATE% > %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO     TIME: %TIME% >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO     USER: %USERNAME% >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO COMPUTER: %COMPUTERNAME% >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%

FOR /F "tokens=1" %%i in (servers.txt) DO (
  ECHO ::::::::::::::::::::::  %%i  :::::::::::::::::::::::::: >> %LOGFILENAME%
ECHO Running command on... %%i
  ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
PSEXEC -h \\%%i NETDIAG  >> %LOGFILENAME%
  ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
  ECHO. >> %LOGFILENAME%
)

GOTO EOF

:EOF
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO  %0 COMPLETED!
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::: END SCRIPT :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

So there you have it.  We spent about 10 minutes modifying one of my standard script templates to create two scripts that collected the information from multiple DCs in a few short minutes.  Please leave me a comment if you find this useful.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2013
    This is wonderful however there is not dcdiag results. i checked the log and it says dcdiag completed but there is no dcdiag output. whether there was any error in dcdiag on any server.

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2013
    @Himanshu - Are you using /Q switch on DCDIAG which suppresses everything that is not an error?

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2013
    Works fine for me, just what I was after, thank you

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2013
    how can we run batch file on multiple pc from a single pc without using remote desktop

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2013
    @aditya, you can only run a batch file against remote machines if the command you are running supports running it remotely (e.g. DCDIAG).  You might look at using PowerShell native commands or PowerShell remoting to accomplish your work.

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2013
    What if you are managing different domains? i mean, will this work to capture, let's say, 3 different domains dcdiag output (each of them has 3 DC's e.g.). 9 DC's. No trusts between them. Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2013
    @Curious  - If you have an administrator account in each domain with the same username/password it "might" work.  Worst case scenario just copy the script and binaries to a computer in each domain.

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2015
    Hi , Thanks for the script but i can see only computername,username,datae,time. No output. please help me on the same.

  • Anonymous
    November 25, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 25, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2015
    Thanks for your reply. I would like to ask if there is a way to avoid below errors in the dcdiag output and save seperate log or text file for every domain: • Starting test: FrsEvent         The event log File Replication Service on server         dcdiag-2008.margiestravel.com could not be queried, error 0x6ba         "The RPC server is unavailable."         ......................... dcdiag-2008 failed test FrsEvent •      Starting test: DFSREvent         The event log DFS Replication on server         dcdiag-2008r2.margiestravel.com could not be queried, error 0x6ba         "The RPC server is unavailable."         ......................... dcdiag-2008r2 failed test DFSREvent •      Starting test: KccEvent         The event log Directory Service on server         dcdiag-2008.margiestravel.com could not be queried, error 0x6ba         "The RPC server is unavailable."         ......................... dcdiag-2008 failed test KccEvent •      Starting test: SystemLog         The event log System on server dcdiag-2008.margiestravel.com could not         be queried, error 0x6ba "The RPC server is unavailable."         ......................... dcdiag-2008 failed test SystemLog Please let me know if this can be done. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2015
    Thank you so much for your reply. I will get back to you in case of anything else.