.local domain

[digone52]

Hi.

 

Excuse if this is the wrong forum for this topic.

 

We have a .local domain which we are about to move our "admin" domain resources to. I'd prefer that we have the domain name right before performing this move.

 

I've been reading on Edugeek and elsewhere that .local domains shouldn't be used - that ideally we should be using a subdomain of our .sch.uk domain.

 

Presumably we should therefore use something like "local...sch.uk" as a suggestion?

 

I know there are issues that you can't get certificates for .local domains, but so far for us this has not been an issue.

 

Two questions then...

 

* What are the full implications of having a .local domain? Are we storing trouble up for ourselves in future going forward with a .local?

 

* As long as we test-test-test, should we rename our ".local" AD DNS domain before performing our "admin" domain merge?

 

Many thanks.

[ellsandell]

You shouldn't really be using a ".local" for a domain. Much better using a registered .tld (.sch.uk for example) sub-domain. The links below cover some reasons as to why its best practice to avoid suffixs such as .local.

 

Why you shouldn't use .local in your Active Directory domain name..

 

Active Directory Domain Naming Best Practices

 

 

Renaming our .local domain is on the horizon for us, so can't really advise to what is best as of yet.

[digone52]

There is a recipe to rename the domain here https://mizitechinfo.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/simple-guide-how-to-rename-domain-name-in-windows-server-2012/ which I guess we can follow in our test environment as we are using Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 for DCs, but just to confuse me even more, in this example it illustrates how to move to a .local domain name!

[DMcCoy]

The most important question before you think about a domain rename. Do you have Exchange?

[digone52]

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

 

We do, but in the "admin" domain we wish to merge into the one with the .local address - hence I want to get it right before merging. Doing an Exchange transition will be painful enough though I'm sure.

[DMcCoy]

Just checking, you can only rename a domain with exchange in it, if it is Exchange 2003 SP2, no other instances are supported for a rename.

 

I did a domain rename with 2003 iirc, for macs but before exchange was in, so not too painful. Also try to avoid disjoint domains if you can (where the short DOMAIN login name is not the same as the first section of the fqdn). You can do it, but it upsets some things (DPM2012 *r2*)