DNS questions

nel

this is probably a stupid question where ive missed something simple....

basically i have 3 domains setup in vmware with dns running in each domain. when i try to browse a machine in another domain i.e. "\\dc2\" it cannot find the machine. but if i manually add the appropriate dns suffix to the machine then it locates it fine.

have i just missed something in the dns setup or something?

Everlife

EDIT: Oops, I just noticed from Cory's message that you are in a multiple domain environment.

CoryS

Are these 3 domains completely seperate of each other? If you add the A record to the dns server that you are currently on and then browse to it with one of the clients that is using this dns server then it would work fine. I assume you could add a forwarder for these requests to the other dns servers and place the ptr record for the machine in there (unless you have it already registering when it receives its address via dhcp)... Maybe some clarification from another person would lend more info

nel

i have a parent.com domain and then childa.parent.com and childb.parent.com. (obviously these are example names). i have a forward and reverse lookup zones setup for each domain.

on another note.... in an real-world scenario would a large corporation use forwarders and reverse zones for its local domain then would it use a secondary zone copy for the parent.com domain? its just someone mentioned this to me and was a little unsure how you would spread the load in the real world. or is there no one definitive way to setup dns?

CoryS

A forward lookup zone and a forwarder are 2 different things, the forwarder is something used when querying other dns servers, a forward lookup zone is something that is used by external machines that are looking for your server hosting a website or something like that.. A reverse lookup zone is something that is used for name to ip resolutions on the client end, so if bobs computer wants to talk to jims all he would have to put is \\jim\c$ this is where your client machines register with dns when you have that option checked in the advanced properties of your tcp/ip properties.

Everlife

nel wrote:

i have a parent.com domain and then childa.parent.com and childb.parent.com. (obviously these are example names). i have a forward and reverse lookup zones setup for each domain.

on another note.... in an real-world scenario would a large corporation use forwarders and reverse zones for its local domain then would it use a secondary zone copy for the parent.com domain? its just someone mentioned this to me and was a little unsure how you would spread the load in the real world. or is there no one definitive way to setup dns?

Hi Nel,

You would normally have both a forward and reverse lookup zone within each domain. These would cover resolving host names to IPs and IPs to host names within the local domain.

As for DNS resolutions for hosts in other domains, it's very dependent on numerous factors. Take a read through your DNS section of the book you are reading and think about these questions:

1) If you want to eliminate zone transfer traffic, what options do you have?
2) What is the difference between a standard and AD-integrated zone?
3) When would you choose a delegation over a stub zone?
4) What is the advantage of a conditional forwarder?

If you address these questions as you read, you'll have a much easier time grasping the material.