Reinstalling Failed DAG Node from Scratch

Hi folks,

Just wanted to share with you about another scenario which you may face when you work with DAGs. Sometimes you can have your Exchange servers dead which you need to reinstall . There're 2 options of doing it. The first one is using /RecoverServer parameter while in the other case you will need to scrap all the Exchange server related information from AD. In this post I will cover the second scenario.

First, you will need to remove all the database copies from the failed server. You will need to run command as below:

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server Server01 |foreach {Remove-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity $_.Name}

After this server should be removed from DAG. Since server is offline and can't be accessed by the cluster service you will need to use the -ConfigurationOnly parameter and command will be as below:

Remove-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer -Identity DAG01 -MailboxServer Server01 -Confirm:$false -ConfigurationOnly

After this you will need to verify that the server has been indeed removed from DAG by running the below command:

Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup DAG01 |select Name,Servers |fl

After DAG server has been removed it should be evicted from cluster:

Get-ClusterNode Server01 |Remove-ClusterNode -Force

Finally, we will need to clean up AD object for Exchange server. For this purpose ADSIEDIT tool will be needed. You will need to connect ADSIEDIT to Configuration partition and then navigate to the server object, something like below:

CN=Server01,CN=Servers,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=CONTOSO,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=contoso,DC=com

Delete server object and click Yes for deleting container object. Please don't forget to be extremely careful when using ADSIEDIT, because one wrong mouse click can destroy your Exchange org and you will need to restore AD from backup authoritatively which is not a lot of fun.

Finally, in this scenario we will need to delete computer object of a dead Exchange server. Merely resetting password for it is not enough. And this is because when Exchange is installed it registers a bunch of Exchange-related SPN records. You can see it as below:

setspn -l SERVER01
Registered ServicePrincipalNames for CN=SERVER01,OU=Servers,DC=contoso,DC=com
:
        MSServerClusterMgmtAPI/SERVER01.contoso.com
        MSServerClusterMgmtAPI/SERVER01
        IMAP/SERVER01
        IMAP/SERVER01.contoso.com
        IMAP4/SERVER01
        IMAP4/SERVER01.contoso.com
        POP/SERVER01
        POP/SERVER01.contoso.com
        POP3/SERVER01
        POP3/SERVER01.contoso.com
        exchangeRFR/SERVER01
        exchangeRFR/SERVER01.contoso.com
        exchangeAB/SERVER01
        exchangeAB/SERVER01.contoso.com
        exchangeMDB/SERVER01
        exchangeMDB/SERVER01.contoso.com
        SMTP/SERVER01
        SMTP/SERVER01.contoso.com
        SmtpSvc/SERVER01
        SmtpSvc/SERVER01.contoso.com

If brand new computer object is not created Exchange installation may fail or in case of its success, services may fail starting, therefore I highly insist that it is deleted before the OS is re-imaged.

I hope you will find this post helpful for your dealings with Exchange servers.

Enjoy!