Repadmin provides different Help menus for different types of information and for different levels of experience among administrators. The following table shows the commands that you can run for different Help menus in Repadmin.

Command	Description
/?	Displays and describes commands that are available.
/help	Same as /?
/?:<cmd>	Displays possible arguments <args>, appropriate syntaxes, and examples for the specified command <cmd>.
/help:<cmd>	Same as /?:<cmd>
/experthelp	Displays commands that are available for advanced users only.
/listhelp	Displays the variations of syntax that are available for the DSA_NAME, DSA_LIST, NCNAME and OBJ_LIST strings. Note The DSA_LIST parameter is the same as the DC_LIST parameter in the Windows Server 2003 version of Repadmin.exe.
/oldhelp	Displays help for commands in the Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 versions of Repadmin.exe.

This section explains the syntax of the DSA_LIST parameter.

	Note
	The DSA_LIST parameter is the same as the DC_LIST parameter in the Windows Server 2003 version of Repadmin.exe.

Syntax

{<dc_name dc_name…> | * |<partial_server_name>* | site:<site_name> |gc: |fsmo_<type>:[<name> | <site_name>]}

Parameters

• Repadmin syntax uses the following terminology:
  
  
  • Naming context
    
    The distinguished name of a directory partition in an AD DS forest. Naming contexts include the three Read/Write naming contexts—domain, schema, and configuration—and the optional read-only naming contexts that are present on domain controllers that are global catalog servers. A naming context can also be an application directory partition. You specify a naming context as a distinguished name, which indicates its hierarchical relationship to the forest root domain, for example, DC=MyDomain,DC=Contoso,DC=Com.
    
    
  • Globally unique identifier (GUID)
    
    The 128-bit number that is used to uniquely identify objects that are stored in the directory, for example, fa1a9e6e-2e14-11d2-aa9b-bbfc0a30094c. The GUID is sometimes referred to in syntax as a universally unique identifier (UUID). For the purposes of Repadmin, these two terms are synonymous.
    
    
  • Distinguished name
    
    An X.500 distinguished name, for example, CN=Server1,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=Contoso,DC=Com.
    
    
• In the Repadmin examples that are included in each command topic, the domain controller object GUID and the domain controller Invocation ID that are returned by some commands, such as the /showrepl command, initially show identical hexadecimal values (until system state is restored). However, these two values identify different objects. The domain controller object GUID is a unique identifier for the NTDS Settings object on the domain controller. The value of the domain controller object GUID does not change unless you remove AD DS from the domain controller, and then reinstall it. The domain controller Invocation ID identifies the directory database on the domain controller. This value changes when you restore a domain controller from a backup. When you first install a domain controller, the values for these two identifiers are the same; however, whenever you restore a domain controller from a backup, the Invocation ID value changes.
  
  
• Most Repadmin commands take their parameters in the following order:
  
  
  1. "Destination or Target DSA_LIST"
     
     
  2. "Source DSA_NAME", if required
     
     
  3. <Naming Context> or Object distinguished name, if required
     
     
  For example:
  
  

  repadmin /showrepl <DSA_LIST> <Source_DSA_NAME> <Naming Context>
  

  <DSA_NAME> is a Directory Service Agent binding string, as is <DSA_LIST>. For AD DS, this string is a network label. For a domain controller, network labels include Domain Name System (DNS), NetBIOS, and IP address. For example:
  
  

  dc-01
  dc-01.contoso.com
  localhost
  

  For Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), this string must be a network label of the AD LDS server that is followed by a colon, and then followed by the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) port of the AD LDS instance. For example:
  
  

  ad-am-01:2000
  ad-am-01.contoso.com:2000
  

  <Naming Context> is the distinguished name of the root of the naming context. For example:
  
  

  DC=My-Domain,DC=Contoso,DC=Com
  

• Text with international or Unicode characters displays correctly if you install appropriate fonts and language support on the computer from which you run Repadmin. Examples of such text are naming context names and server names.