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Windows 2000 Server DNS Settings

I have a customer that has an existing Windows 2000 server setup. I believe that DNS is setup incorrectly on this server. Most machines have the IP Address of the server as thier primary DNS server, and the ISP DNS server as thier secondary DNS server. Sometimes these machine are unable to connect to the Internet. It is my understanding that you only want the server IP in the DNS setting and then you let the server do the rest. What is the proper way to do this?

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mikeleebrla

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rshooper76

ASKER

That makes sense, however I have never setup DNS on a Windows 2000 server. Can you tell me how to setup the forwarder and anything else that shoudl be looked at to verify that everything is configured correctly. If you could point me to a good how-to that would work also.

mikeleebrla

install DNS from add/remove programs
go the the DNS snap in in administrative tools
rightclick on the server and choose properties
the second tab is the forwarders tab...

add at least 2 or 3 "real" dns servers there.

pcavenue

no way is dealing with dns worth 125 points.

rshooper76

ASKER

I guess it is as easy as the documentation says it is. Could there be something else that is preventing the internet requests from being forwarded correctly? So far everything looks like it is setup correctly, however it does not appear to be working right. And, like I said I have never actually setup DNS on a Windows server so I am well aware that is could be a very simple thing not setup correctly. I will do some more research and look at a few other things and see if I can figure out what is going on with this server.

chefred112

...can you spec out the whole network....does the customer use dsl? T1? what type of router is used to get to the net? are the clients using dynamic addressing? if so, is the server used as dhcp? or is the rotuer the dhcp?

kain21

is the server able to ping the dns servers you setup as forwarders?

mikeleebrla

i think the problem might not be with dns,,,, but rather with your internet connection.

when your users can't get to say www.yahoo.com you need to do some testing

1. do an nslookup on www.yahoo.com and see if they resolve to the IP address of www.yahoo.com?
2. if it does resolve, can they ping www.yahoo.com by dns and by IP address?

this will tell you if the problem is with DNS or connectivity.

rshooper76

ASKER

I will be at this customers site tommorrow and I will see if any of these ideas correct the problem.