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Overscavenged DNS, now I need to repopulate.

Our DNS had many records incorrect, as DHCP was and apparently is not updating records properly when IP addresses changed. I shortened the leases for DHCP and shortened the scavenge interval for DNS to clear out the records, but apparently went too far. I need a way to repopulate DNS from DHCP without having to touch all the workstations in my environment. I have a current list of computer names and IP addresses, and DHCP is also current. I would prefer not to maually update all the records individually. Also, if anyone has an idea on how to ensure that DHCP keeps up with workstation name/address links in the future I would appreciate it. DHCP and DNS are both running on the DCs (Win2k3 sp1). The DHCP lease interval is currently 5 days, and DNS is set to scavenge stale records, the no-refresh and refresh are 1 day, and the automatic scavenging is set to 10 days.
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svivian
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ASKER

Thanks for the info on the aging. I have reviewed that article, and so far (with the exception of the aging settings) everything is configured properly. We were having some problems with replication a few months ago, which I have since corrected, but as I noted, we were left with A records that were no longer correct (Machine 1 was listed with the IP of machine 2, machine 2 had machine 3's IP, some machines had no listing). I hae made the refresh/no-refresh changes you suggested, and now that I think about it they do make sense based on your explanation. Now all I need to do is repopulate. I have already tried doing /release - /renew and /registerdns from a test client, but the records don't ever appear on the server.
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TheCleaner
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after the /registerdns

check the system event log on the client and see if it shows as successfully registering the A and PTR records or not...
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Chris Dent
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How about a restart of the DHCP Service? You've probably tried already...

The other option is that you can stop DHCP registering on the clients behalf, and provided they're all Windows 2000 or above they'll start populating their records quite quickly (or whenever /registerdns is run).

Chris
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Chris Dent
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For TheCleaner...

If DHCP is configured to register on the clients behalf then the client is not allowed to register their own records so /registerdns doesn't do anything useful. We kind of bumped into that problem at one point but just stopped DHCP handling registrations.

Chris
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TheCleaner
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true...unless he set the DNS server to allow unsecure updates...
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svivian
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ASKER

We are running DNS as Active Directory-Integrated, so only secure updates are allowed.
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svivian
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ASKER

I think I may have found part of the problem: the DHCP server was set to use a non-existant account as the account for updating DNS. I have since remedied that. However, I would still like a way to force repopulation of the DNS records.
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svivian
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ASKER

Finding the incorrect credentials fixed the repopulation problem, but without the info you all supplied, I wouldn't have put it together. Thank you.
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Chris Dent
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Glad I (we) could help :)

Chris
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TheCleaner
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Thanks for the points...happy to assist.