Question

How can I Backup the DNS and Restore it?

Asked by: yzn

hi.

please if I have a DNS and it has zones settings, how can make a Backup and restore it if some problems happend.

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Asked On
2005-07-05 at 03:32:29ID21480321
Tags

dns

,

backup

,

restore

Topic

Windows Networking

Participating Experts
1
Points
50
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: Fatal_ExceptionPosted on 2005-07-05 at 05:08:54ID: 14368167

I believe the zones are located in the %systemroot%\system32\dns folder, but if you run an AD integrated DNS, you will more than likely, if you have trouble, end up doing an Authoritative Restore of the server.  In this case you will need to backup your system state using a backup utility, and restore from that...  (I know just enough about DNS to get out of most jams...:)

 

by: Fatal_ExceptionPosted on 2005-07-06 at 04:12:34ID: 14376520

Okay, just so happens I was reading an article on DNS from MCP Magazine and they have the answer for you...  I would post the entire column, but it is fairly long..  so here is only one way, and I suggest you read the entire article:

http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=1024

ith DNS, backing up primary and secondary zones independent of the system state is a pretty simple process. You can use the xcopy command to back up all zone text files on a DNS server. This command would back up the contents of the default DNS folder to the "D:\backups\dns" folder:

xcopy %systemroot%\system32\dns d:\backups\dns /y
Unfortunately, the process isn’t as simple for Active Directory-integrated DNS zones. For these zones, the support tool dnscmd.exe can get the job done. To back up any DNS zone with dnscmd.exe, you just need to use the /zoneexport switch with the command. To back up the MCPmag.com zone locally on a DNS server, you'd run:

dnscmd /zoneexport mcpmag.com backup\mcpmag.com.dns.bak
This command writes a copy of the mcpmag.com zone to the %systemroot%\system32\dns\backup\mcpmag.com.dns.bak file. Note that the command doesn't overwrite existing files, so if you’re including it with a backup script, be sure to move the file to an alternate location after the export completes, or to rename or delete the current backup file before you run a new dnscmd /zoneexport job.

If you need to re-create a new zone from the export file, you’ll find that you can do this by using dnscmd.exe with the /zoneadd switch. The only catch with this approach is that if you’re looking to recover an AD-integrated zone, you need to add the zone as a primary first and then convert it to AD-integrated. For example, to recover my mcpmag.com zone, I'd run:

dnscmd /zoneadd mcpmag.com /primary /file mcpmag.com.dns.bak /load
Here, note that the backup file needs to reside in the %systemroot%\system32\dns folder for it to be properly discovered. Use the /load switch to tell the command to load the configuration from the existing file. Without it, the command will create a new zone data file that will overwrite the contents of the backup file.

After adding the zone to the DNS server, you can convert it to an AD-integrated zone by running:

dnscmd /zoneresettype mcpmag.com /dsprimary
At this point, you can then enable secure dynamic updates for the zone by running:

dnscmd /config mcpmag.com /allowupdate 2
This command configures the zone to accept only secure dynamic updates, as specified by the allowupdate value of 2 (use 0 to specify No dynamic updates, 1 for nonsecure and secure dynamic updates).

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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