ok, first, let me take you back 4 months. we have 1 server (win2k3 sbs) and 8 computers. with this setup we had no problems. we needed a new phone system so we decided to go with Fonality (www.fonality.com). the phone system for the most part works great, the problem is the system requires that you make the phone server the primary DNS server and my windows DNS server the secondary DNS server. for the last 4 months i have been having several DNS issues and the only thing i can think of is this phone server that i installed. what options do i have? i need to keep the fonality server as the primary DNS server otherwise the phone system wont integrate with the comptuers (which we need for the app to work). at first i was thinking to put the phones on 1 lan and the computers on another, but that wouldnt work because each pc has an app that interacts with the phone system. so, again, what options do i have?
what can i do to resolve these dns issues?
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You current DNS configuration is not working because the PBXtra server doesn't know anything about your AD DNS zone.
Go to the Support page (http://www.fonality.com/h
the phone server is a linux server. can i still do a zone transfer?
the users sometimes get disconnected from the server for a split second which renders their mapped drives unusable thus kicking them out of their accounting program. some users get "disconnected" from the exchange server (which is also the dns server) for a couple minutes.
Then go for the second solution (I guess the "your existing PBXtra server" should read "your existing DNS server", otherwise the construction won't make much sense):
"You can define a local zone in your existing PBXtra server so that sNNNN.pbxtra.fonality.com and sNNNNx.pbxtra.fonality.com
>the phone server is a linux server. can i still do a zone transfer?
Yes - but from what you've said, that doesn't sound like the problem
>the users sometimes get disconnected from the server for a split second which renders their mapped drives unusable thus kicking them out of their accounting program.
Disconnected for a 'split-second' is *NOT* a DNS problem!
>some users get "disconnected" from the exchange server (which is also the dns server) for a couple minutes.
Wow - something horrible here - I'm going for a 'hub' or 'switch' failure?
Lets get back to basics and eliminate a few options:
1. You're worried that the DNS problems may be causing the problem? Test - Designate 1 PC as a test PC, and 'hard-code' the DNS of the SBS server and the fonality server into the system by editing:
$WIN/system32/drivers/etc/
If therer are still problems with accessing shared drives and your accounting software, then you know that the DNS is not to blame!
2. Intermittent faults are the biggest pains known to a sysadmin - You have to be able to analyse them whilst the fault is occurring, or have logs to assist you. The easiest way to 'attack this problem is given that "some users get "disconnected" from the exchange server (which is also the dns server) for a couple minutes". Next time the problem occurs, you need to get to the PC concerned and see whether you can 'ping' the appropriate server by ip address. This should help you to locate the source of the problem.
3. Next theory. VOIP can be absolutely horrendous with the amount of bandwidth that it uses. Is there any chance that you network is becoming 'overloaded'? In which case, look to change any broadcasting hubs to switching hubs. Preferably upgrade the whole network to 1000/100, or reduce the resolution used by the VOIP application, and hence the bandwidth used.
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pjedmond,
this problem has been driving me crazy for a couple months...
i replaced the switch, rewired the place and the problems still exist.
i was thinking it might be a server NIC problem but ruled that when one pc was working fine and another one wasnt. the server does have a heavy load which is why i added another gig of ram. also, the system is only VOIP on the lan, it uses pstn lines once it gets out of the building.
i will edit the host file as you suggested and see how it works.
Are you using gigabit hubs?
Have you got any bandwidth monitoring on the network? The fact that the problem appears to be in different parts of the network strikes me as a potential bandwidth issue.
Another potential test is if you have gigabit cards in the 2 servers, both connected directly to a gigabit switch, perhaps upgrade on of the client PCs to a gigabit card as well, and connect it directly to the same hub, in order to maximise bandwidth available to that client. Hopefully problems will stop for that client, but possibly still cause problems for the other systems on the network.
Network overloading creates all sorts of wierd and wonderful failures!
If you're in the UK, then you could employ me to sort it out;)
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I'd guess that there is potential for the 10/100 on the fonality server to be overwhelmed if there are more than about 4 or so VOIP connections to it, depending on the a or mu law encoding that your setup uses. See if you can reduce the quality of the VOIP, and hence the bandwidth used. This is not necessarily a 'max bandwith' problem, but may be a bus limitation. Although a 10/100 ethernet card can cope with up to 40 or so Mbs before collisions cause the 'network protocol to have to back off ', the PCI bus could be a bottle neck depending on what else is going on within the system at he same time? Loads of possibilities here! Also, any other bandwidth bottle neck could also be problematic, particularly if any of your hubs are daisy chained rather than in a star configuration. If the available bandwidth is exceeded, then anything requiring network connectivity could fail.
As for logging the bandwidth - I personally have a netgear hub that does the monitoring for me in real time. My forte is with Linux, and if I needed to, I'd probably use a linux PC bridge with 2 ethernet cards to monitor traffic load if I needed logging to occur.
I think that as an immediate approach - check what logging your hub can achieve? Connect a PC directly to it in order to carry out the logging as the rest of the network is probably not going to work once the problem starts.
>do you think its related to the server being a bit overloaded?
I doubt it, but you could always check that next time you have a problem. I have a 2GHz linux box on a 10/100 network that does file serving, mail serving, spam and antivirus, database and web server, and it never gets above about 40% of CPU useage, even when working hard. I know that it isn't supporting a GUI as well, but most of the time it ticks over at under 10% of CPU cycles. I reckon that the ethernet connection would top out before the server. If it was a 100/1000, then unless you've got a fairly powerful system, then the server will be the limit rather than the ethernet.
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by: jasonfarmerPosted on 2006-08-15 at 10:42:51ID: 17319699
all 8 pc's are running xp pro....