DNS question

[Guest]

We have a primary and a secondary DNS server supplied to our clients via
DHCP. If the primary is down how long does it take for the client to use the
secondary? Is it immediate? 30 seconds? Is this setting configurable via
registry or GPO?
These are XP Pro SP2 clients on a Windows 2003 domain.

Our primary was down for about 15 minutes and it appears that some clients
did not use the secondary DNS server.

 

[Robert L. \(MS-MVP\)]

I would double check the DNS settings. Can you nslookup for the secondary
DNS server? Or this post may help.

DNS redundancyWe have two windows 2000 servers as DCs with two DNS. Each DNS
server points itself as DNS server and point otehr DNS as secondery. ...
www.chicagotech.net/netforums/viewtopic.php?t=27


--
Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on
http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on
http://www.HowToNetworking.com

 

[Guest]

To clarify, are you actually using primary and secondary servers in the
context of DNS, or are these Active-Directory integrated DNS servers, with
one the being listed first in the DHCP settings deemed the primary?

Next, how have you determined that "some clients" apparently did not use the
secondary - was this based on inability to resolve resource names? I ask
because those machines may simply have not needed to contact the DNS server
if they were calling for resources whose mappings were in the local machine
cache from a previous lookup, within the resources' time-to-live window.

Just curious.