DHCP not assigning DNS

[Chris Niblo]

Hi. I am running a Windows 2003 Server as DC, DNS and DHCP. Initially, everything was peachy, but lately clients have not been able to access the Internet and it turns out that they were not being assigned the DNS IP (I did ipconfig/ all and nothing was listed for DNS). Can anyone offer some advice as to why this is happening? For now, I have statically assigned the DNS server, but I'd like it to work properly through DHCP.

Thanks!
Chrissie

 

[Enkidu]

Hi. I am running a Windows 2003 Server as DC, DNS and DHCP.
Initially, everything was peachy, but lately clients have not been
able to access the Internet and it turns out that they were not being
assigned the DNS IP (I did ipconfig/ all and nothing was listed for
DNS). Can anyone offer some advice as to why this is happening?
For now, I have statically assigned the DNS server, but I'd like it to
work properly through DHCP.

Have you looked in Event Viewer? Any DNS/DHCP related events in there?

Have you tried a ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Christine Niblo]

Hi. I haven't checked the event ID yet, but I will tonight. I have had the
user do a ipconfig /release and renew to no avail.
Thanks,
Chrissie

 

[Enkidu]

Try a reboot after the /release. Have the clients somehow lost the
setting for DHCP setting the DNS IPs in the NICs?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Christine Niblo]

The clients were configured to get DNS information from DHCP, but since it
was not working, I had to manually assign a DNS server to the clients. Last
night I looked at the DNS server and noticed that there were two identical
zones (one was _msdcs.domain.com and the other was just domain.com). I
don't know how that happened. I removed the first one and thought that
might help, but it didn't. :-(

Thanks,
Chrissie

 

[Enkidu]

Ouch! That is where a DC registers itself! Can you login OK?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Christine Niblo]

Yeah everyone can log in OK. I removed the _msdcs.domain.com zone and now
I just have domain.com zone. Clients have shown up in this zone (they
weren't in either before), but I don't know if that is because I deleted a
zone or because I statically assigned the DNS IP. I don't know what to do.
Should I uninstall and reinstall DNS from scratch? I am not sure what it
should look like when installed correctly. Is _msdcs.domain.com suppose to
be the only zone in a simple network?
Thanks!

 

[Enkidu]

I would restart your DCs. The _msdcs.domain.com is used by Active
Directory, and domain.com is used by machines to register themselves.
Basically. There's a little more to it than that. You should have both
zones in an AD environment and I don't think that your problems are in
the DNS area. I think that they are related to DHCP.

Having said that, it might be worth posting in the DNS groups.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Christine Niblo]

Ok thank you for the clarification!

Chrissie

I would restart your DCs. The _msdcs.domain.com is used by Active
Directory, and domain.com is used by machines to register themselves.
Basically. There's a little more to it than that. You should have both
zones in an AD environment and I don't think that your problems are in
the DNS area. I think that they are related to DHCP.

Having said that, it might be worth posting in the DNS groups.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Enkidu]

What DHCP options do you use to suppy the DNS information? What are
the numbers?

Cheers,

Cliff