Joining Vista Business to 2000 domain results in error

[Guest]

Hello! I am trying to connect a brand new Windows Vista Business machine to a
Windows 2000 domain whose name is - I kid you not - local. It's not
local.local, and it's not <companyname>.local, it's just local, so the server
name is server.local. There's only the one server on the network.

When I try to join the machine to the domain, I get the following error:

"An Active Directory Domain Controller for the domain local could not be
contacted"

Details of the message are as follows:

"The domain name local might be a NetBIOS domain name. If this is the case,
verify that the domain name is properly registered with WINS.

If you are certain that the name is not a NetBIOS domain name, then the
following information can help you troubleshoot your DNS configuration.

DNS was successfully queried for the service location (SRV) resource record
used to locate an Active Directory Domain Controller for domain local:

The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.local

The following AD DCs were identified by the query:

server.local

Common causes of this error include:

- Host (A) records that map the name of the AD DCs to its IP addresses are
missing or contain incorrect addresses.

- Active Directory Domain Controllers registered in DNS are not connected to
the network or are not running.

For information about correcting this problem, click Help."

Nslookup works just fine; all lookups (both locally and on the Internet) are
accurate.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

-Bruce D

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

It is not recommended to use Single-label DNS name as domain name. In this case, you may enable WINS so that the Vista may be able to join the domain.

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
Hello! I am trying to connect a brand new Windows Vista Business machine to a
Windows 2000 domain whose name is - I kid you not - local. It's not
local.local, and it's not <companyname>.local, it's just local, so the server
name is server.local. There's only the one server on the network.

When I try to join the machine to the domain, I get the following error:

"An Active Directory Domain Controller for the domain local could not be
contacted"

Details of the message are as follows:

"The domain name local might be a NetBIOS domain name. If this is the case,
verify that the domain name is properly registered with WINS.

If you are certain that the name is not a NetBIOS domain name, then the
following information can help you troubleshoot your DNS configuration.

DNS was successfully queried for the service location (SRV) resource record
used to locate an Active Directory Domain Controller for domain local:

The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.local

The following AD DCs were identified by the query:

server.local

Common causes of this error include:

- Host (A) records that map the name of the AD DCs to its IP addresses are
missing or contain incorrect addresses.

- Active Directory Domain Controllers registered in DNS are not connected to
the network or are not running.

For information about correcting this problem, click Help."

Nslookup works just fine; all lookups (both locally and on the Internet) are
accurate.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

-Bruce D

 

[Guest]

Sorry Robert, I forgot to mention that WINS *is* enabled - although the Vista
machine is not listed in the WINS database.

Is there anything I can do to join this machine to the "single-label"
domain, short of re-creating the domain? (which would really, REALLY suck.)

-Bruce D

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

We need to figure out why the WINS doesn't have the record for the Vista. Do you have correct WINS settings?

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
Sorry Robert, I forgot to mention that WINS *is* enabled - although the Vista
machine is not listed in the WINS database.

Is there anything I can do to join this machine to the "single-label"
domain, short of re-creating the domain? (which would really, REALLY suck.)

-Bruce D

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

We need to figure out why the WINS doesn't have the record for the Vista. Do you have correct WINS settings?

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
Sorry Robert, I forgot to mention that WINS *is* enabled - although the Vista
machine is not listed in the WINS database.

Is there anything I can do to join this machine to the "single-label"
domain, short of re-creating the domain? (which would really, REALLY suck.)

-Bruce D

 

[Guest]

Which specific settings are you referring to? The Vista machine is correctly
(I think) looking to the AD server for WINS resolution - and now that I'm
double-checking, the Vista machine IS listed in WINS. ?????

 

[Michael A. Bishop \(MSFT\)]

The root problem is that Vista is doing a DNS lookup to find the DC, and
it's coming back with the name server.local, but is failing to resolve that.
Make sure the server is registering itself with DNS (or you could hard-code
it, if it has a static IP), so that server.local resolves to its IP.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm...Could I also try a HOSTS and/or LMHOSTS entry on the Vista machine?
And has the location for those files changed in Vista?

 

[Michael A. Bishop \(MSFT\)]

That sounds like it should work, but I honestly don't know. Give it a shot!
The location hasn't changed, though.

 

[Guest]

OK! Got past that error. Neither HOSTS, LMHOSTS, nor DNS changes worked. I
wound up sniffing the traffic with Wireshark (formerly Ethereal), and found
that the problem was in a NETBIOS query for a 1C record. I put that in my
WINS server, and we went flying past _that_error.

Now on to the next error!

I get a similar error message, only this time, what it can't resolve is:

"DNS was successfully queried for the service location (SRV) resource record
used to locate an Active Directory Domain Controller for domain local:

The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.local".

Wireshark indicates that the query went:
192.168.1.100 --> 192.168.1.2 DNS Standard Query SRV
_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.local

And that the answer came back:
192.168.1.2 --> 192.168.1.100 DNS Standard query response SRV 0 100 389
server.local

Examining the packet in Wireshark, the correct IP address for server.local
*IS* provided in the answer.

I have what I think are the correct static mappings in the DNS.
"_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.local" is in the DNS, and it does resolve to
server.local. I tried changing the resolution to the static IP address, but
that didn't work either.

Any further ideas?