DNS on 2000 Server without Active Directory

[devastator]

Just shooting around for any comments on how my Internal DNS configuration could be cleaned up. It seems to work but I am questioning whether it is correct.

I currently have 2 Windows 2000 Servers without Active Directory, one is a Primary DNS the other is running Terminal Services. Our main Server is running Windows NT SBS 4.5 and is a secondary DNS Server. Okay, here is the config.

Primary DNS Server has a forward zone with MAR.LOCAL and has two SOA addresses and host addresses, the Primary and Secondary DNS Servers, the reverse lookup zone is 0.0.10.in-addr.arpa (someone told me I could just use 10.in-addr.arpa but it didn't seem to work) with two SOA addresses and host addresses to Primary and Secondary DNS Servers.

All workstations are running Windows XP Pro with static IP's. I have set the DNS configuration to point to the Primary and Secondary DNS Servers. Under the advanced DNS options I have selected append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes and Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix. I have also checked "Register this connection's address in DNS. Each Station's individual suffix is mar.local thus giving it a name of workstation10.mar.local for example.

On the Primary DNS I have turned off forwarders and plugged in our ISP's external DNS Servers under TCP/IP options of each DNS server which works for resolving outside Internet addresses. I have also added both ISP's DNS Servers under Root Hints. The Primary Server is set to allow zone transfers only to the secondary DNS server. Both forward and reverse zones are set for allowing dynamic updates.

Any tips or ideas would be appreciated. We will eventually upgrade our SBS 4.5 to 2000 with Active Directory and will make it the Primary but in the meantime I would like to get this running more efficiently if possible. We use to use WINS and DNS but now we eliminated the WINS (except for a few 98 stations).


Thanks,


DEV

 

[MaYHeM24]

Ok, donno where to start on this so.. here goes!

First of all the reverse lookup needs to be in the form in which you are using an ip subnet. ex: if you use 10.1.1.xxx as your subnet then the reverse lookup Zone would be 10.1.1.x Subnet or if you use 192.168.100.xxx then 192.168.100.x Subnet would be used for reverse lookup. You should also have a pointer to your servers IP listed here. You need to list your ISP DNS Servers under FORWARDERS!! The whole idea is to resolve locally then forward request to them that you can't resolve locally or from your root host servers. You must create a HOST A record for this server. I also use Wins as a forward lookup. You should not have your ISP DNS servers listed in DHCP or locally on each workstation. You are defeating the purpose of a Local DNS Server by doing this.

I run some what the same setup you have. We have 2 NT Small Business Servers v4.5 and 7 Win2k Servers. We are preparing for the migration to (2)Win2k DC w/Active Directory now. I already have a Win2k Server setup and running DNS, DHCP, Proxy, and WINS to replace what SBS is doing. I hope this helps but ask away if you have any more questions on this... This is not bad to setup but harder to put into text! -=MaYHeM=-
-=IS MGR=-

 

[devastator]

The Workstations actually only do point to the Internal DNS Servers. The DNS Servers point to themselves and also to the ISP's DNS Servers. I use to have forwarders and I was told to try this setup instead if workstations were having problems resolving names. Can't remember off hand were I read that but it works. I can go back to forwarders if you think that is the better option.

But as far as the reverse lookup goes are you sure that it is suppose to be 10.0.0.? We are using the default internal IP's that SBS setup which is 10.0.0. with subnet mask of 255.0.0.0
When I setup the reverse it asks for the ip so I plug in 10.0.0. and it creates the reverse lookup zone of 0.0.10.in-addr.arpa

Do I create the HOST A RECORD for just the Primary Server on Primary DNS Server or do I create a HOST record for both the Secondary and Primary?


DEV