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TessandoFlag for United States of America

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Difference Between OU Computer Name and DNS Name in Active Directory

I'm learning "the hard way" what limitations the AWS Directory Service "SimpleAD" has.

After setting up SimpleAD according to the AWS directions, I have attached a few servers to this domain. Some of which I want to get rid of and some that I want to keep.

Here's my question:

Why is the Computer "Name" showing in the Computer's OU of Active Directory different than the DNS name?

A quick related follow-up question:

Will this cause some possible damage later on in the form of DNS collision if, for example, I attempt to reuse the name of the computer?

I'm really trying to get a handle on if this is a worthwhile use of my time to clean-up Active Directory or just re-create a server from the ground up.

In the screenshot, the OU is showing "DB-PRIVATE" and I actually renamed that computer "ESROM" and re-joined it to the Domain. It's this sort of weirdness between the two that is causing some frustration for me.

Thank you in advance for your help!


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FOX
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Are you running on premise AD with Simple AD?
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Hey Foxluv - No On-Premise AD, this is isolated to Amazon Web Services. Thanks!
So you are saying the computer that you have added to the domain as ESROM is showing up in your DNS as DB-Private?  
1. Is ESROM also showing up in your DNS
2.  Does ESrom have an entry on the nic for a primary DNS server
3.  If DB-Private doesn't have the same ip as ESROM right now you can remove it out of DNS forward and reverse lookups. You should remove it anyway.  When DNS updates ESROM will show up.
Great questions.

SimpleAD is a "headless" Active Directory, so things like DNS I don't control. This is especially frustrating since I can't import the Active Directory Module in Powershell (just the first of a few examples).

For the sake of this conversation, let me ask this:

What I'm trying to figure out is why the original server name of "DB-PRIVATE" stuck around when I intentionally removed the server from the domain and then explicitly joined it as "ESROM".  Does that makes sense?

Again, this is in the context of a limited Active Directory.

Thanks again for your help!
You mean the DB-PRIVATE object stuck around in SimpleAD after removing the server from the domain? That's actually pretty normal in most light-weight LDAP implementations The objects have to be deleted manually after the computer is removed from the domain.
Yes, that's correct, Adam. The Server DB-PRIVATE stuck around even after termination. To manually delete it do I just <Right>-click and choose "Delete"?

Thanks!
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Adam Brown
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Thanks to everyone for their contribution. While I didn't get resolve to my SimpleAD-specific questions, this is enough information for me to at least delete the server in question.