New domain name not showing when Network Browsing

[JonathanMortimer]

Hi,

We have three sites - let's call them site1, site2, site3.
We have recently replaced the main server on site2 and at the same time changed the domain name for that server and entire site.

This works fine, except the old domain name is still lingering when one browses the network in an Explorer window (it is there instead of the new one on site3, and is there in addition to the new domain name on site2, neither the new or old domain name appear on site1).

There seems to be other problems too:
When browsing Microsoft Windows Network there seems to be a path problem as it pops up an error telling me that this resource is unavailable; I'm pretty certain this is related to the WINS as we have push/pull to the two other sites from each site.

1) Site2 can browse to site3 but not site1, and has the new and old domain names for site2 listed (but the old one is not accessible - it times out with an error when clicked);
2) Site3 cannot browse to anywhere but itself, although Site1, the old domain of Site2, and Site3 are listed;
3) Site1 does not even see Site2 or Site3 in the list;

Any pointers or help with this please?
If I type the IP address in an explorer window it all works fine, but I suppose this is not related to WINS(?)

 

[SimonDavies]

Please clear something up, you changed the Domain name or the server name?

What kind of domain structure are you using (AD, NT4 Domain or any kind of X500 via Unix)?

If you changed the domain name did you recreate any trust relationships between the other domains\sites?

Are you publishing the domain suffix via any DHCP servers?
Have you deleted any old\stale data from DNS servers (run scavenging)?

You mention in #2 that site 3 can't browse anywhere, can it still browse via IP?

Have you tried doing an ipconfig /flushdns or an nslookup?
Have you tried doing a tracert to the other sites at all, that should give you an idea where any routing issues are occuring.



Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[JonathanMortimer]

Hi Simon, thanks for your reply.

I should explain that I did not set up the existing network, I am the IT assistant here and trying to solve this problem we have.

We changed the domain name, I believe the server name remains the same.

I am not sure what structure the domain has, it's probably the standard one created by Windows Server 2003.

I don't know what you mean about trust relationships, where can I check those?

All IP addresses appear to be working as normal.

I do not know about publishing domain suffixes, flushing DNS, nslookup, or tracert. Are they just run as-is from the command line? Are there any options I should use, and what should I be looking out for in the results?

Thanks in advance!

 

[SimonDavies]

Ok, first things first... why did you change the domain name?

The three sites you have configured, are they all part of the same domain?

Actually scratch this... you really need to sit down and think if you're the right person to be doing this.
Playing with Active Directory and Windows networking is not something you can pick up in 5 minutes.
If you have somehow completely ruined the domain infrastructure by renaming it without thinking of the consequences then you may want to start thinking about a new job.

OK, rant over.

You can't just go changing the domain name on a live network, it has consequences, if you're running an Active Directory integrated DNS environment then you have potentially just broken all of the connections between the sites due to the change in Domain name, none of the previously existing AD Zones will work with the new AD that you're running.

WINS shouldn't be the main source of your name resolution, that should fall down to DNS (infact, you don't need WINS on your network unless you have legacy applications that require it, I have worked in environments that just don't use WINS).

I still believe that your issues are DNS related, most of the previous commands I mentioned are done from a command line.

Ipconfig /all will give you a complete breakdown of your current IP configuration.
ipconfig /flushdns will flush the dns resolver cache on that machine.
ipconfig /registerdns will register that machine into DNS
tracert computer.site1 should give you your routing to that machine (assuming you aren't blocking ICMP packets at the router).
tracert ipaddress will give you the route to the machine if you can't get name resolution (obviously you need to enter the actual ipaddress rather than the word ipaddress).

The DNS suffix should be part of your DHCP configuration, have a look at that and see what it is.

I will tell you now, if this is because you changed the domain name of the environment you will have a lot of work trying to get it back working correctly and you may want to consider hiring someone internally who understands Microsoft networking to a better level than you, the command line utils should be second nature as they are very useful troubleshooting tools.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[JonathanMortimer]

Hi Simon,

Thanks again for your reply.

The domain name change was to bring it inline with the rest of the domain name policy (each site has it's own domain and is named accordingly to where the site is by town, the one we changed was the original site and thus not named in a useful descriptive way).

It's true, I'm not a Windows expert, if I was then I'd be the IT Manager and not assistant My background is actually in unix and Macs where things seemed to make a lot more sense, but I was never a network admin before now so I only have a basic understanding of things like DNS.

I believe WINS is required by some part of our system, possibly the voip phone system, I'm not 100% sure on that one.

I take it that there should be no problem running the command line tools that you mention while the network is in use? We rely on having good network speed for the phone system, if anything were to affect this or cut off the phones then we'd have to do it out of hours. The phones run off their own server on each site.

 

[SimonDavies]

OK, it sounds like the issue you're having is down to the fact that there is no trust relationship between the new site and the old existing sites.

You need to reconfigure trusts between all three sites.

Yes you can run those commands from the command line at any time.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[brianinms]

In my opinion if you have 3 locations that are all connected it wouldn't make sense to have 3 separate domains.

 

[JonathanMortimer]

Hi,

tracert takes me straight to where I need to be - local router, remote router, then target.

I have run ipconfig with flushdns and registerdns, it has made no visible difference.

I have noticed that networking browsing from site 2 (the one we replaced) now cannot browse site 1 or site 3 at all, it gives an access permissions error when I try to browse to them, though they are shown in the list of network places.

So how do I go about reconfiguring trust relationships? I did a bit of digging and looked at the Active Directory Domains and Trusts admin tool, it just contains the local server and nothing else (it's the same for the other two sites), all are on Windows 2000 level.

Trying to read anything on techrepublic is like trying to read War and Peace!

If anyone can offer some straight forward practical step by step instructions of what I actually need to do to get this trust thing working as it should, I would be very very grateful!