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Unable to find Domain Controller

I have offsite computers. They are connected with a site to site VPN. When I try to join any off the offsite XP pro desktops to the 2003 Domain, I get an error tell me that the domain controller cannot be found.
The offsite computers have a different address scheme.
I can ping the domain controller.
Please help.
Lori

murgroup

Can you ping the DC by machine name or just IP? It could be your DNS settings of the NIC's or DHCP server on the remote end. If they are correct try putting an entry into the host file of one of the remote xp machines that references the DC name and IP.

grandebob

The IP address your VPN adapter gets should have a DNS server that can resolve to your Active Directory's DNS. Without doing that, there is no way for any client to find the SRV records that tell it where domain controllers are.

You also may need to put the full AD domain name in when joining over a remote network (domain.local not domain)

Alan Hardisty

Change the primary DNS server IP address on the XP client to use the DNS server on the remote site that runs AD then you will be able to join the domain,
The secondary DNS IP can be the IP of your local router.

NLITech

ASKER

I have tried all of the above suggestion. No luck. I have contacted the vender of my firewall on the remote end; they feel it could be a firmware issue. I will update the firmware tomorrow.
Lori

murgroup

We had a similar issue with firewall compatibility. The main office and remote office hardware was not compatible. We could establish a connection but no traffic would flow. Hope the firmware update works.

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NLITech

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