Explanation of Advanced TCP/IP Settings (DNS)

Was wondering can someone explain to me the settings:

Append primary and connection specific DNS suffix
Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix
Append these DNS suffixes (in order)

Read my MSPress Book and Sybex, did not help.

Thanks in advanced!

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undomiel

Take a look through this Microsoft article: How to configure TCP/IP to use DNS in Windows XP

Basically it affects name resolution when you do something like ping blah. It'll append suffixes depending upon the configuration so it'll do blah.contoso.com for instance if contoso.com is your primary dns.

This article also adds a bit more detail: Microsoft Corporation

It has pictures so it'll explain better than me.

dynamik

DNS suffixes create FQDNs from hostnames in an attempt to help you find the computer you're looking for. For example, if you enter ping computer1, you'll probably see pinging computer1.domain.com. In this case, it is set to automatically append the primary DNS suffix.

The primary DNS suffix is, by default, the domain the computer is joined to. Connection specific DNS suffixes can be configured on NICs. It might be useful to configure those in multihomed computers that are connected to different networks.

Parent suffixes are just what the sound like, the suffixes of parent domains. For example, if your domain is sales.east.domain.com, the parent suffixes will be east.domain.com and domain.com.

The final option allows you to specify other DNS suffixes to use. For example, microsoft.com may want to try to find hosts in the msn.com domain. Or, maybe you want to set this up with a couple of child domains. sales.east.domain.com may want try to find hosts in sales.west.domain.com. None of the other options will allow that to happen, so you'll need to enter it manually.

Let's say you're in the sales.east.domain.com, and you have all three boxes checked with sales.west.domain.com entered in for the custom suffixes. If you try to reach computer1, it will try these FQDNs:
computer1.sales.east.domain.com
computer1.east.domain.com
computer1.domain.com
computer1.sales.west.domain.com

If you had connection-specific suffixes defined, it would try those as well.

Mmartin_47

dynamik wrote: »

.

Parent suffixes are just what the sound like, the suffixes of parent domains. For example, if your domain is sales.east.domain.com, the parent suffixes will be east.domain.com and domain.com.

QUOTE]

Was wondering why is the parent east.domain.com and domain.com

How do you know sales is not a parent domain? I know it's a child right? But how?

royal

Because of the position the domains are in the namespace.

two.one.domain.com

domain.com is the second level domain.
one.domain.com is a child of domain.com
two.one.domain.com is a child of one.domain.com
three.two.one.domain.com would be a child of two.one.domain.com

You can always just skip the entire namespace and create your domain as three.two.one.domain.com so it necessarily doesn't have any parent Windows Active Directory namespace.

Mmartin_47

royal wrote: »

Because of the position the domains are in the namespace.

two.one.domain.com

domain.com is the second level domain.
one.domain.com is a child of domain.com
two.one.domain.com is a child of one.domain.com
three.two.one.domain.com would be a child of two.one.domain.com

You can always just skip the entire namespace and create your domain as three.two.one.domain.com so it necessarily doesn't have any parent Windows Active Directory namespace.

Ah I see. Are the names subdomain and child referring to the same thing?

royal

Yes................................................ < All the dots because apparently we can't make short posts.

Mmartin_47

royal wrote: »

Yes................................................ < All the dots because apparently we can't make short posts.

LOL, thanks Royal appreciate the feedback. Thank you to all. To better understand the concept I got 2 servers running

Server1- Domain Controller/DNS
Server2- Member server joined to domain

Played around with the advanced DNS settings and now have a good idea of what they do. Thanks all.

Mmartin_47

dynamik wrote: »

Let's say you're in the sales.east.domain.com, and you have all three boxes checked with sales.west.domain.com entered in for the custom suffixes. If you try to reach computer1, it will try these FQDNs:
computer1.sales.east.domain.com
computer1.east.domain.com
computer1.domain.com
computer1.sales.west.domain.com

If you had connection-specific suffixes defined, it would try those as well.

You know you can't check all three boxes at the same time. It's either append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes and append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix.

If you check append these DNS suffixes (in order). Does not allow you to select the above two options.

dynamik

Good observation. I was just going from memory; I forgot about the radio buttons. Those are mutually exclusive.

Mmartin_47

dynamik wrote: »

Good observation. I was just going from memory; I forgot about the radio buttons. Those are mutually exclusive.

Ah not a problem. Appreciate the response dynamik, thanks.