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onepiolin

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dual DNS entry, need only one?

I have a Windows 2003 server with 2 nics.  x.5 and x.10.

I have setup OWA on it, besides sharing files. OWA, within the network,  will not work properly (don' t know why) if the browser points at x.10, but will work perfectly if it points to x.5

I tried disabling x.10 with catastrophic results. It screwed up Exchange royally... so I re-enabled it. My problem is that this server is registering with AD and creating dual entries on the DNS server.  

Sometimes the DNS server will resolve the name to x.5 and other times with x.10. Problem is with OWA. I need the DNS server to resolve to x.5 all the time, but also have x.10 in it's database.

Is there a way to configure DNS to do that?
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tigermatt
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Without looking into the OWA issue too much because I don't have enough information to troubleshoot, I'll focus on DNS. The easiest way to ensure that OWA always passes to x.x.x.5 is to create a separate DNS host (A) record in your DNS zone which is called, simply, "owa". (The zone's DNS suffix will be automatically appended, producing an FQDN of owa.yourdomain.local).

You can then set the IP address associated with this A record to be x.x.x.5, and access OWA internally using http://owa/exchange. This will ensure that you always pass to the .5 NIC on the server.

-tigermatt
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onepiolin

ASKER

I neglected to state that the OWA server name is "exchange". There are 2 "A" records in the DNS database that resolve "exchange". One to x.5 and the other one to x.10.  I don't know if x.10 is automatically created via AD, but I think it is.

When I do an nslookup at any machine for "exchange",  I get both ip addresses. sometimes I get x.5 first and others I get x.10 first.

I think what I'm looking for is a way for the DNS server to always resolve x.5 first, without getting rid of the x.10 "A" record.
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lavionline

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Was the solution I have already provided not suitable?

You are correct in saying that both records are automatically being registered by the Exchange Server. The NETLOGON service usually registers DNS records, so it is detecting both NICs and registering the appropriate DNS records.

DNS will automatically return either of the IP addresses, so it isn't just as simple as to get it just to resolve the server name to x.5 record first. The easiest way is just to use a second A record by a different name, as I have already mentioned.

-tigermatt
@lavionline - Good thinking :-)
Although I am still having problems with OWA, I was able to take out the registering of the NIC... which is what I wanted.

About the OWA problem, I need to install SP2 on the exchange server and try again. so that will have to wait

Tigermatt: thank you for the comments. I wasn't looking to create a new host record.  i'd have to propagate the name throughout the company if I did that, and right now I'd rather just keep it the same.