DNS tricky situation

kovo

I have Server 2003 setup and DNS installed through DCPROMO. The server has its own IP as the DNS server being 192.168.1.1
I have 2 XP Pro client pcs. I cant get em on the domain, i hit nslookup on the server and get the message Cant find server name for address 192.168.1.1: Non existent domain.
Its saying that it cant find itself. DNS is installed and configured fine. AD is running fine. From clients i can ping the server by IP and server name and the server can ping the clients bot hways aswell.
Any ideas??????

sprkymrk

From the clients, what happens when you ping your domain's netbios name? If your domain is mydomain.com, ping just "mydomain". You should see a reply from your DC ip address.

shamrocker98

Are your clients using 192.168.1.1 as the primary DNS server? Is the DC using 192.168.1.1 as its primary DNS server?

Trailerisf

check your dns records for SOA and such.

FYI, you also need DHCP

Danman32

Cant find server name for address 192.168.1.1: Non existent domain. simply means that you don't have a reverse lookup zone configured for 192.16.1, so NSLookup could not determine the DNS server's name that it is going to use as a query. This is more informative than anything else, and can be ignored. A reverse lookup zone is not required for DNS or AD to work. Seeing that so called error though tells me that you have configured your workstations' TCP/IP properties correctly for DNS by pointing them to the DC which I would assume also runs the DNS. I can tell this because NSLookup assumed the DNS server IP was 192.168.1.1 obtained from the network stack, and was simply trying to try and get its name.

Now what comes after that when you query a host or an FQDN is what matters.

Or are you trying to query the IP of the server rather than the server's name? You need a reverse lookup zone for your subnet with appropriate PTR records for the host IPs for that. PTR records can be filled in by DHCP once you have a reverse zone configured.

Kevin.Smith

It sounds like you may not have your LDAP records in DNS on the domain controller. Try stoping and starting the netlogon service.

Danman32

Not having LDAP records wouldn't prevent an NSLookup for a host, nor would it prevent the NSLookup from doing a reverse lookup for the default DNS server it will query.

It WOULD prevent a workstation or server from joining the domain or cause AD errors on the DC though.

But to check your DNS for proper AD configuration, use Netdiag /fix on the DCs and examine the DNS test. If it does contain errors, but subsequent lines indicates that it may have fixed it, run the test again. If Netdiag can't fix the DNS to produce a clean DNS test, check that the zone is enabled for dynamic DNS and that the interface is enabled to make DNS registrations. Secure dynamic registration is preferred but sometimes you have to temporarily make it unsecured to get it fixed. After that, you can reinstate secure dynamic DNS registration.

How exactly were you doing NSLookups? Exactly what was/were the outcomes?