Missing Dc's in _msdcs

[gedwin]

I have a DNS zone for a child domain which has had a few replication
issues lately.
I have been checking over the config of DNS and looked at the records
in the _msdcs folder for the zone and noticed that two DNS servers are
missing, both of which are GC's.

Can anyone explain the purpose of this folder and if all DNS servers,
especially GC's should be registered. If they should whats best to
check?

As I am asking, recommendations would be welcome for good DNS
references, as I cannot find the answer to the above anywhere.

Cheers......

 

[Tony Eversole]

First of all, are your DCs running AD Integrated DNS? Do your DCs point to themselves for DNS? In a typical environment, All DCs run AD Integrated DNS and point to themselves for DNS, this way they update the appropriate records within DNS when they register themselves, and these updates are automatically replicated to the other DNS servers (if you have AD Integrated DNS zones).

--
Tony Eversole MCSE, MCSA, Net+, A+
I have a DNS zone for a child domain which has had a few replication
issues lately.
I have been checking over the config of DNS and looked at the records
in the _msdcs folder for the zone and noticed that two DNS servers are
missing, both of which are GC's.

Can anyone explain the purpose of this folder and if all DNS servers,
especially GC's should be registered. If they should whats best to
check?

As I am asking, recommendations would be welcome for good DNS
references, as I cannot find the answer to the above anywhere.

Cheers......

 

[gedwin]

All of the zones are AD integrated, and the servers point to themselves
as the Primary server.
So I believe they should they should register every hour.

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

In

I have a DNS zone for a child domain which has had a few
replication issues lately.
I have been checking over the config of DNS and looked at
the records in the _msdcs folder for the zone and noticed
that two DNS servers are missing, both of which are GC's.

Can anyone explain the purpose of this folder and if all
DNS servers, especially GC's should be registered. If
they should whats best to check?

As I am asking, recommendations would be welcome for good
DNS references, as I cannot find the answer to the above
anywhere.

Cheers......

If you are talking about the GC records, these record are NOT created in the
child _msdcs.child.domain.com, the are created only in the parent
_msdcs.domain.com
The child DCs also create their GUID CNAME records in the parent
_msdcs.domain.com zone. The only sub directorys created in the child
_msdcs.child.domain.com are dc and pdc with their SRV records.

 

[Tony Eversole]

Have you used replmon to see whats going on with replication?

 

[gedwin]

These are the records that are missing, the GUID CNAME records for two
DC's.

this what I am trying to establish:
What is the _msdcs folder or zone in the child zone for.
Should all DC's in the child domain register their GUID CNAMES there.

If they are not there, does this mean an under lying issue with those
DC's?

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

In

These are the records that are missing, the GUID CNAME
records for two DC's.

this what I am trying to establish:
What is the _msdcs folder or zone in the child zone for.
Should all DC's in the child domain register their GUID
CNAMES there.

If they are not there, does this mean an under lying
issue with those DC's?

The GUID Cnames for all DCs are only registered in the _msdcs.<forestroot>,
not matter which domain they belong to. Are they there?

 

[gedwin]

Yes they are all there.

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

In

Yes they are all there.

Then all is good, this is why all members of the forest must be able to find
the forest root zone. It is also the reason Win2k3 put the
_msdcs.<forestroot> in a Forest wide replication partition.