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Reverse lookup zones (DNS)

What would be the purpose for creating reverse lookup zones in my DNS server? Right now I'm running DNS integrated into active directory. I think it builds the forward lookup tables automatically. What is the purpose of reverse lookup and is it difficult to implement?

Here's an error I noticed on my sniffer logs related to reverse lookup too.
http://mvpbaseball.cc/333.jpg
any ideas?
thanks

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RLGSC

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aashishkunte

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dissolved

ASKER

Thanks guys. My problem is I dont know how to even begin this.

I am doing this in active directory.

-Do I need to make a new reverse lookup zone for every client PC I have? Or just a pointer to their network (ie: 1.168.192)
-I'm setting it up now, and it is asking for network ID. I'm assuming I type the IP address of the client?
-Lastly, can someone give me an every day example of when I would use the reverse lookup zone? Thanks!

dissolved

ASKER

ok guys, I got it working for one subnet. I entered a zone 1.168.192-arp etc etc eetc
Now I can do nslookup 192.168.1.x and it returns a hostname

However, I added a secondary reverse lookup zone for my 192.168.2.0 network, and I cannot get it to work!
I do a nslookup 192.168.2.x from the same PC, and it doesnt find a hostname.

Ideas?

scobb13

I have a similar situation setting up reverse dns for 5 subnets.
Could you use the following as the reverse lookup zone to cath all the subnets?

ex: 168.192-in-addr-arpa

Thanks in advance

dissolved

ASKER

Good question scobb13, I'd like to know myself. I'm assuming your using a 16 bit subnet mask?

scobb13

We are not. I was just using that as an example. I have setup a test to see if that will work. I'll report to you once I have an answer.

dissolved

ASKER

thanks a lot, look forward to hearing what you find.

scobb13

So far the test has shown that if you setup your reverse lookup zone like this - ex: 168.192-in-addr-arpa (Do not put any value in the 3rd octet the zone will capture all of the subnets that begin with 192.168).

The different subnets show up in this zone as folders coresponding to the different subnets.
Example:
If you have the following two subnets 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.2.0 then you should see a 1 and 2 folder in the zone as well as SOA and NS records.
Remember to give any changes time to replicate.

dissolved

ASKER

Awesome. Thanks for posting the results of this. Will definitely make things a little asier.