DNS replication between two domain controllers
I have a w2k3 ad domain with two domain controllers,,, the DNS name for the domain is my.mydomain.com and is AD Integrated. I created another forward zone called yourdomain.com on dc1 and populated it with some host records under both the my.mydomain.com forward zone and the yourdomain.com forward zone,,, it's been about three days and i happened to look at dc2,,, it has replicated the records for the my.domain.com forwarded zone but not for the yourdomain.com zone,,, as a matter of fact i don't even see the yourdomain.com forward zone even listed on dc2 under forward lookup zones,,, did i forget to check off something? Shouldn't any zone i create under forward zones be replicated to the other dc? Both dc's are domain controllers running dns
on the properties for the dns server. How is the forwarders setup?
should be from any dns server in the domain. How is the advanced setup? Should be getting from active directory and the registry.
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ASKER
For your first question:
On dc1, the forwarding is set up as All other DNS Domains to point to my external dns servers, advance is set From Active Directory and registry
On dc2, the forwarding is set up as All other DNS Domains to point to my external dns servers and yourdomain.com points to dc1, advance is set From Active Directory and Registry
The yourdomain.com domain is a Primary Zone
Since my AD DNS namespace is different formt he new zone,,, AD is my.mydomain.com,,, new zone is yourdomain.com, if I Active Directory integrate the yourdomain zone on dc1, will that replicate it over to dc2?
On dc1, the forwarding is set up as All other DNS Domains to point to my external dns servers, advance is set From Active Directory and registry
On dc2, the forwarding is set up as All other DNS Domains to point to my external dns servers and yourdomain.com points to dc1, advance is set From Active Directory and Registry
The yourdomain.com domain is a Primary Zone
Since my AD DNS namespace is different formt he new zone,,, AD is my.mydomain.com,,, new zone is yourdomain.com, if I Active Directory integrate the yourdomain zone on dc1, will that replicate it over to dc2?
> if I Active Directory integrate the yourdomain zone on dc1, will that replicate it over to dc2?
Correct. Unless this zone is AD-integrated, it will not automatically replicate to DC2. If you want to leave the zone as a standard (file-backed) zone, you can configure a secondary zone on DC2.
Correct. Unless this zone is AD-integrated, it will not automatically replicate to DC2. If you want to leave the zone as a standard (file-backed) zone, you can configure a secondary zone on DC2.
On dc2, the forwarding is set up as All other DNS Domains to point to my external dns servers and yourdomain.com points to dc1
Each DNS server should point to itself.
Each DNS server should point to itself.
ASKER
thenone,,, I'm not following your last comment "Each DNS server should point to itself." I thought the way i had it set up was that for anything other than my.mydomain.com go to external dns, for yourdomain.com go to dc1 since it's the only dns server that know about that zone,,, is tha tnot correct?
thenone: I'm not sure what relevance your comments have as it relates to the OPs question about DNS zone replication. DNS forwarders are not relevant to DNS replication in the scenario that the poster has described.
Are both of these servers active directory dns servers? If they are they should point to themselves.
ASKER
Yes the are both AD dns servers, via the network settings, both servers have themselves pointing to themselves as preferred and then they point to each other as Alternate,,,
I would take out the alternative.They should only point to themselves.
> I would take out the alternative.They should only point to themselves.
I disagree with this. This is a best practice for a server that is configured as a WINS server - a WINS server should only point to itself for WINS resolution. In the case of DNS, however, an alternate DNS server will provide name resolution for the server in the event that the local copy of Active Directory (and thus any AD-integrated zones) becomes unusable, and will allow the server to be booted for troubleshooting purposes.
The recommendation that DNS servers only point to themselves was meant to avoid the so-called "DNS Island" problem; however, this was only an issue in Windows 2000 and has been resolved in Windows Server 2003.
I disagree with this. This is a best practice for a server that is configured as a WINS server - a WINS server should only point to itself for WINS resolution. In the case of DNS, however, an alternate DNS server will provide name resolution for the server in the event that the local copy of Active Directory (and thus any AD-integrated zones) becomes unusable, and will allow the server to be booted for troubleshooting purposes.
The recommendation that DNS servers only point to themselves was meant to avoid the so-called "DNS Island" problem; however, this was only an issue in Windows 2000 and has been resolved in Windows Server 2003.
Laura the reccomendation came from Microsoft.
Thanks for pointing that out Laura!
ASKER
Both of you,, this is really great,,, if I AD integrate the primary zone yourdomain.com, if something was to break, would i be able to reverse it without recreating everything?
> "if something was to break"
You can convert an AD-integrated zone back to a primary zone, which will delete the DNS data from Active Directory and leave a standard (file-backed) zone on whichever computer that you made the change from.
You can convert an AD-integrated zone back to a primary zone, which will delete the DNS data from Active Directory and leave a standard (file-backed) zone on whichever computer that you made the change from.