recommended dns settings for domain controllers running 2008 server 2

[bookouri]

What is the current recommended way to configure the tcp/ip settings on domain controllers? We run 3 domain controllers and each one also runs dns. Should the DCs point to themselves for primary dns and then another server for secondary dns? or should their primary dns be one of the other servers?

thanks for any suggestions....

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

Primary is local first then any other DNS server second

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[bookouri]

thanks thats the way they have always been run, but i had read or been told that NOW they recommended to make the primary a different server and not its self...

 

[kmcferrin]

Primary is local first then any other DNS server second

That is actually a very common misconfiguration in DNS servers. The first DNS server listed (aka, primary) should NOT be the server itself. The correct method is to list one or more DNS servers as the primary, secondary, and on the advanced tab, and then add the loopback IP address (127.0.0.1) as the last DNS server in the list. If you run the DNS Best Practice Analyzer it will confirm this.

The reason is pretty simple. If you set the DNS server to use itself for DNS lookups then it will never query another DNS server unless its own DNS service isn't running. That means that it is entirely possible for it to become isolated from the other DNS servers in your environment if it doesn't have the appropriate records to locate the replication partners, and you'll never know that anything is wrong until you run into name resolution issues.

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[TechyMcSe2k]

kmcferrin is correct. I've always used forwarders just in case one of my DNS servers could not resolve internal records. This is probably old habits from previous versions of Windows.

Best Practices Analyzer

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd759260.aspx

http://www.samtechconsulting.com

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Great knowledge can be obtained by mastering the Google algorithm.

 

[bookouri]

thanks for the update

I reconfigured the ip settings on my dc's to match the new configuration..