Ole_Brun
asked on
Name resolution on domain is not working correctly
Hi.
My company has one main office and several branch offices.
In the main office we have the DC, a Windows 2003 server, which is also the primary DNS server for the PC's in that area. In one of the branch offices we have a Windows 2003 Server which acts as a DNS slave. This is the primary DNS server for the PC's in that area. The DNS slave used to be a Linux machine with BIND DNS daemon, but was replaced a few months back with the Windows machine.
What happened after the replacement was that PC's both at the main office and at the branch office have problems resolving internal addresses. It looks as if WINS is still working because we can ping COMPUTERNAME, but not COMPUTERNAME.some.domain. The only solution is to run the command 'net stop dnscache' on the clients. Then it works. Afterwards we can turn the dnscache on again and it will still work, but we always have to turn it off after booting the PC's.
Does anyone have an idea on what is going on?
My company has one main office and several branch offices.
In the main office we have the DC, a Windows 2003 server, which is also the primary DNS server for the PC's in that area. In one of the branch offices we have a Windows 2003 Server which acts as a DNS slave. This is the primary DNS server for the PC's in that area. The DNS slave used to be a Linux machine with BIND DNS daemon, but was replaced a few months back with the Windows machine.
What happened after the replacement was that PC's both at the main office and at the branch office have problems resolving internal addresses. It looks as if WINS is still working because we can ping COMPUTERNAME, but not COMPUTERNAME.some.domain. The only solution is to run the command 'net stop dnscache' on the clients. Then it works. Afterwards we can turn the dnscache on again and it will still work, but we always have to turn it off after booting the PC's.
Does anyone have an idea on what is going on?
meugen
have you tried to use as a primary DNS on the branch PCs the DNS from the main office?
ASKER
Well, users not using the DNS server from branch office are also having the same problem...
But I have changed now on one of the machines. Will report back my findings.
But I have changed now on one of the machines. Will report back my findings.
Couple of things to get clear picture...
1. Is the NSLOOKUP resolves FQDN(COMPUTERNAME.some.dom
2. Do you have DNS suffix inplace?
- Cheers!
1. Is the NSLOOKUP resolves FQDN(COMPUTERNAME.some.dom
2. Do you have DNS suffix inplace?
- Cheers!
Please help me understand your environment. Is the zone for the domain Active Direcory Intigrated. If so the DNS server in the branch office is the same as a primary. The reason I ask this is I wanted to know where your clients are registering their records. If it is AD intergrated then the clients are registering the records locally if not thy have to go across the WAN to register their records. Then they have to be transfered to the local DNS server.
ASKER
To answer nskurs first:
1. Before doing a 'net stop dnscache' nslookup will not resolve FQDN, but Hostname is ok.
2. Yes, suffic is inplace
MSE-JNegus:
Not sure what you mwan by integerated, but the server in the branch office is not setup to be a DC. Only the DNS service has been added. It is merely a slave zone, and no computer is registering with this server. the only reason for having it is to speed up lookups for local machines.
Btw, I tried changing primary dns on one machine to be the DC, but the problem remains.
That makes me believe that the backup dns server might not be the problem after all.
Or what do you think?
1. Before doing a 'net stop dnscache' nslookup will not resolve FQDN, but Hostname is ok.
2. Yes, suffic is inplace
MSE-JNegus:
Not sure what you mwan by integerated, but the server in the branch office is not setup to be a DC. Only the DNS service has been added. It is merely a slave zone, and no computer is registering with this server. the only reason for having it is to speed up lookups for local machines.
Btw, I tried changing primary dns on one machine to be the DC, but the problem remains.
That makes me believe that the backup dns server might not be the problem after all.
Or what do you think?
What do you mean by the term slave. The DNS server in the Branch office is either a secondary server, ie it has a read only copy of the zone in the main office, if so please verify the zone is actually a secondary zone. Or, it is a caching server, ie: it has no zone and forwards all requests to the main office DNS server and caches the response.
When running nslookup verify which DNS server nslookup is using to resolve your query. Please confirm if it is your local DNS Server or your Primary
When running nslookup verify which DNS server nslookup is using to resolve your query. Please confirm if it is your local DNS Server or your Primary
ASKER
I'm used to BIND dns server... Slave means secondary server.
I just did a nslookup mail.domain.com, and it resolved just fine to the internal ip address!
Then I did a ping mail.domain.com which resolved in the EXTERNAL address for the domain.
You see out dns servers resolve internal addresses (192.168.x.x). However the ISP is hosting the dns for our external addresses. So internally mail.domain.com resolves to 192.168.x.x whereas externally it is 213.225.x.x.
So when doing a nslookup the internal address is shown, whereas ping gives me the external one...
I just did a nslookup mail.domain.com, and it resolved just fine to the internal ip address!
Then I did a ping mail.domain.com which resolved in the EXTERNAL address for the domain.
You see out dns servers resolve internal addresses (192.168.x.x). However the ISP is hosting the dns for our external addresses. So internally mail.domain.com resolves to 192.168.x.x whereas externally it is 213.225.x.x.
So when doing a nslookup the internal address is shown, whereas ping gives me the external one...
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You should also check to see if the external record exists in the zone.
ASKER
Yes, one external DNS server was actually configured in the DHCP server. Removed that, and now everything is back to normal :) I guess that mistake was done when we upgraded the firewalls a while back.
Thanks for your help!
Thanks for your help!