DNS Zone Problems

[racer514]

OK, here's the long of it. This is on Win2k servers in mixed domain:
I was asked, (the no experienced guy), to install a secondary DNS zone onto (by myself with no direction) a server.
The snag was that is a server that already had the DNS on it and was a domain controller. ( I thought it was not a DC any longer).
When I tried to add the zone using the FQDN I got a warning that it already existed and I deleted it. ( I though it was a member server otherwise I wouldn’t have). This move also deleted that Zone on the PDC. When I noticed that the zone was gone from the PDC I created another one as a primary zone on the PDC. With all of this mess the secondary zone somehow still has all the correct data and seems to be configured OK. The active directory location of the DNS zone info shows all the normal up to date data.

Since the secondary zone seemed to have all the correct data we moved it up to become the Active Directory Integrated zone.
I need to know if I should delete the newer Primary zone that I created in a panic on the PDC. I don’t think it is doing anything at this time. The PDC is still listed as the primary zone but I set up the secondary as a forwarder so any requests the PDC could not resolve it would forward to the secondary. At this time I cannot ping the secondary (now AD integrated server) by it’s FQDN but I am thinking (there I go again) that may be because it was registered with the old integrated zone which is now deleted.
I can, however ping other servers and workstations by their FQDN’s. Scratch that, I could before it was promoted. I can now only ping by FQDN myself and the PDC (which is missing the initial zone). Will that change when I log off and on again and get the listing for the second DNS server in my DCHP stats.

Now that another domain controller is up with AD integrated DNS should I just remove DNS from the PDC and reinstall it as a standard secondary to possibly promote it back later.

Thanks for any help you may be able to offer.

 

[Guest_imported]

Racer,
When you are refering to zones, do you mean dns servers? According to MS a zone is an area of influence that a DNS server has information about. For example there is a DNS zone for Headquarters X(one side of network) of the ABC corporation and a DNS Zone for Headquarters Y(another side of network) of the ABC corporation. If name resolution is attempted for an object on the Headquarters X side of the network the DNS server set up for that zone is used and if name resolution is not successful it might point to the other zone and so forth. Headquarter X DNS server does not have info about Y hosts but will point to the Y DNS server if a name resolution request is made for a Y hosts. IF chosen ABC could split the zones up further creating more zones or removing them using one DNS zone for both the Headquarters X and Y. OFcourse fewer zones puts loads on servers and may eat up bandwidth depending where the DNS server is located, ie across LAN, WAN etc. Now with that in mind each zone can be set up with Primary DNS and Secondary DNS servers. The secondary DNS servers can be more than one. For example if you have three DNS servers in a zone you have one Primary and two secondary. NOw if the primary goes down there will be no replication changes with in the DNS for that zone until the Primary is back up and runnning. So if your Primary goes down updates will not occur. ****** Enter Active Directory Integrated DNS which does provide fault tolerance. When DNS servers are integrated with Active Directory in a zone you no longer have a Primary and secondary DNS servers. You now have simply multiple DNS servers which will still perform properly even if one goes down. Once you have AD integrated DNS you can set up "Allow dynamic updates" option to keep administrator involvement to a minimum.
I am not sure if a DNS zone can be both active directory integrated and non-AD integrated as in your case, you still have a primary DNS and an integrated DNS. If the zone is still responding as a primary secondary set up and the primary is not working properly updates will not occur. That is the reason pinging by FQDM is not working on your network but for yourself (host name lookups first step is to check itself) and your DC which probably had a static IP, I hope, since DNS was installed there in the first place. Also AD integrated zones are not supported by BIND. Just thought I would mention that just incase.
Hope this helped in deciding what to do. IF any one else finds my info with error please reply.

 

[racer514]

OK, I have done a little research since I posted this. Here's the break down of what I actually did and I will spare you on the why's. (just pisses me off)

1. Tried to add secondary zone on another machine.
2. Couldn't add it because it was already there (name already existed)
3. Deleted the existing zone not knowing this was a domain controller and it was an AD integrated zone. I figured it would just delete this zone on this machine. Don't know any better, no one here to teach me.
4. Made secondary zone on machine (BDC). OK, seems to have all correct data.
5. Noticed zone I though was primary (was actually AD integrated) was missing on PDC.
6. Now cannot resolve names, even with BDC zone promoted to AD integrated (and has all data).
7. nslookup still shows PDC as primary but I want the BDC to now be primary because it has all the current information OR I would like to restore the PDC with all the correct data so it can do the job. Is there a backup anywhere that might have the files from before I deleted them.

HELP

 

[Guest_imported]

Should I ask if you have Backups of your system that you can reinstall??
Probably not or this trouble would be easily fixable.

Make sure that the new DNS server's IP is entered into all relavent areas. Make sure the Domain Controller has a DNS IP address of your "new server" and make sure your DHCP server is handing out the right ip address for the DNS server as well to all clients. The DNS server should also have a static IP. You probably have checked all of this but just encase.