WINS and reverse DNS question

Is there any reason why an organization would need a WINS box if the whole enviroment is using win2k3 servers and xp clients?

Also could someone give me some examples of when reverse dns would be required?

Thanks

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Comments

snooper47374

No, you would not need a WINs server if all boxes are 2000 +

kalebksp

gojericho0 wrote:

Also could someone give me some examples of when reverse dns would be required?

I suppose if you were watching network traffic and wanted to know the FQDN of some IP address on your network it would be helpful.

eurotrash

some programs probably require them (reverse lookup zones).
i believe nslookup though requires it. ipsec monitor too, if you want name resolution.

strauchr

WINS is quite often required for legacy apps for name resolution as they do not support DNS. A sort of example of this is a completed W2k3 network I built. I decided to add some NAS devices (SNAP) and the only name resolution they supported was WINS. They needs name resolution to allow Windows based authentication. So I had to add WINS to infrastructure.

Reverse DNS is very handy for diagnosis. Say you get a rogue IP address spitting out thousand of packets. A quick to identify it would be ping -a <ip address> and the name may help you identify it.

There are other reasons but these are usually enough to use both.

skully93

I can't speak from experience, but I should like to think that if you have a good set of servers installing the WINS service shouldn't put too much of a burden on them. Plus that leaves you with the handy diagnostic qualities.

Hope that helps!

keatron

What snap appliance did you install? I've rolled out tons of these things and all of the ones I've used in the last 3 years all support dns.

strauchr

The last SNAP servers I did was about 2 years ago. I updated them to the latest software I could and everything but even the product documentation said it only support WINS. I can't remember the models and I don't have access to that network anymore.

I thought it was strange they didn't support DNS. I think there was an option to buy the latest software for them but the business didn't want to fork out anymore cash. There was a 3 months window I think where the software was free if you bought them brand new but we missed that window. Product support in general I didn't find quite helpful. Good devices though for the price.

strauchr

skully93 wrote:

I can't speak from experience, but I should like to think that if you have a good set of servers installing the WINS service shouldn't put too much of a burden on them. Plus that leaves you with the handy diagnostic qualities.

Hope that helps!

They can add network overhead as WINS is pretty chatty. And if you have a large enterprise WINS needs a seperate server infrastructure to support it.

But what handy diagnostics do you refer too?