NT4 DNS on a 2003 domain

[Paul Kavanagh]

I would describe myself as a DNS novice at best and my requirement is this:

We have a central office with several Windows Server 2003 DC's, and 2 AD
integrated DNS servers - we have no DNS problems.

Our firm also has several small remote offices linked by VPN to the
central office. All DNS requests from these remote
sites are directed towards the head office DNS servers. Our objective is
to reduce the DNS traffic over the VPN's.

We have 2 unused copies of Windows NT4 Server and several suitable
machines we can install this OS on. Can we put an NT4
Server on a remote site, install the DNS service and have the 2003 DNS
replicated over the VPN to the NT box? This way all
DNS queries on remote site will be directed towards the local NT4 box.
Also it would be important for any changes in DNS
on the 2003 boxes to be replicated automatically to the remote NT servers
so they are kept up to date.

The 2003 domain is currently running in mixed mode.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions offered.

Paul.

 

[Kurt]

I'm not familiar with the DNS service on NT4 (didn't know it even had it),
but any DNS server can be configured as a secondary to either a standard
primary or an AD-Integrated zone on a Windows DNS server. If NT4 has a DNS
server service and you have copies that would otherwise end up in the trash
or on eBay, might as well use them. Otherwise, a BIND server is fairly easy
to set up (though not as easy as Windows). I had few challenges getting ti
to work with an AD-Integrated DNS server, but I eventually got it.

....kurt

 

[James W. Long]

ok the key words here are,

"mixed mode", which allows you hook up an nt box on that network,

and

"zone transfer" (not replicate). You set the win2k3 dns server
to do a zone transfer to your nt server bdc running dns
and it gets the updates.

James Long