New Upgrade

[Simon Young]

Hi, can anybody help me please. We are about to embark on a domain uprade
from NT4 to 2000 and i have 2 quick questions.

Firstly, the server we have in place is not quite up to the job so we are
getting a new server in, however we need to keep all our existng accounts
etc, so my plan is to upgrade our existing PDC to 2000 with AD, then install
the new server in, DCPROMO that to create a second domain controller tht
will have a copy of all our accounts etc, then remover the origional server
off the network. If i DCPROMO the origional server back out of the domain,
will the single master operations (schema master etc) be transfered to the
other domain controller?

Secondly, re: DNS, we have our external ISP's set as our DNS servers on our
current network (we dont use DNS name resolution as yet). When i create the
2K domain, i will obviousl be running DNS internally, so my question is, on
the netork card properties for each desktop machine, if i put the 2000
server as one dns server that will resolve the internal names, and the
secondary server as one of our isp ones for internet traffic etc, would this
be the right way to do it? Or would all the desktops be just given the 2K
servers address, and if that cant be resolved, would it automatically send
the resolution request to the default gateway (in this case out firewall)
and let that server resolve the name?

Many thanks in advance
Simon

 

[Danny Sanders]

Firstly, the server we have in place is not quite up to the job so we are

getting a new server in, however we need to keep all our existng accounts
etc, so my plan is to upgrade our existing PDC to 2000 with AD, then
install the new server in, DCPROMO that to create a second domain
controller tht will have a copy of all our accounts etc, then remover the
origional server off the network. If i DCPROMO the origional server back
out of the domain, will the single master operations (schema master etc)
be transfered to the other domain controller?

Yes.

If your existing PDC can't support Win 2k you can install NT 4.0 on the new
server as a BDC while connected to your existing network, promote it to PDC
then upgrade to Win 2k.

Secondly, re: DNS, we have our external ISP's set as our DNS servers on
our current network (we dont use DNS name resolution as yet). When i
create the 2K domain, i will obviousl be running DNS internally, so my
question is, on the netork card properties for each desktop machine, if i
put the 2000 server as one dns server that will resolve the internal
names, and the secondary server as one of our isp ones for internet
traffic etc, would this be the right way to do it? Or would all the
desktops be just given the 2K servers address, and if that cant be
resolved, would it automatically send the resolution request to the
default gateway (in this case out firewall) and let that server resolve
the name?

Your AD clients should not have your ISP's DNS server(s) listed on them. For
Internet access either set up your AD DNS server to forward and list your
ISP's DNS server as the forwarder or use root hints. See:
Best Practices for DNS Client settings in Windows 2000 server and in Windows
Server 2003

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;825036



How to configure DNS for Internet access in Windows 2000

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300202





hth

DDS W 2k MVP MCSE