ping, dns, nslookup???

[H]

I have a win2k AD implementation, and have the wierdest problem. On a
GC where I have DNS installed....obviously, I cannot ping a FQDN, of
any A record which resides in a different zone to that of the server,
I get the message "unknown host name". However, I can ping the IP
address. When I issue an nslookup command for the FQDN is resolves to
the correct IP address, but if I issue an nslookup command for the IP
address I recieve the message "non existent domain". The spooky
thing is though is that this is random, ie I am able to ping on
occassions, and then it breaks again after a while.
just to make things clear, the server resides in the zone
servers.company.net - ( AD intergrated)
I then have another zone on my DNS server called
machines.live.com - ( secondary zone, pulled from an NT4 DNS server)
In the zone machines.live.com, I have several A records, which are the
problem.

Any help would be appreciated as to what is going on here.
Thanks

 

[M@]

I have a win2k AD implementation, and have the wierdest problem. On a
GC where I have DNS installed....obviously, I cannot ping a FQDN, of
any A record which resides in a different zone to that of the server,
I get the message "unknown host name". However, I can ping the IP
address.

If you cant ping the name this means that the GC or where ever you are
pinging from cannot resolve the name. Assuming your GC is configured to
use itself for name resolution purposes, this means that the DNS server on
your GC isn't configured with a forwarder to a DNS server that is
authoritative or has a copy of the zone file for the domain with the A
record for the machine you are trying to ping. You can also configure your
GC to use another DNS server of the other domain. But I think you may just
have a bunch of windows 2000 domains which need to talk to each other, and
hence the DNS servers of the different domains may need to be configured
as forwarders to each other. This way whoever gets the query will
eventually pass to a DNS server that has the information you need and you
will get an answer.

When I issue an nslookup command for the FQDN is resolves to

the correct IP address, but if I issue an nslookup command for the IP
address I recieve the message "non existent domain".

Sounds like the reverse lookup zones are not configured.

The spooky

thing is though is that this is random, ie I am able to ping on
occassions, and then it breaks again after a while.
just to make things clear, the server resides in the zone
servers.company.net - ( AD intergrated)
I then have another zone on my DNS server called
machines.live.com - ( secondary zone, pulled from an NT4 DNS server)
In the zone machines.live.com, I have several A records, which are the
problem.

It could be a number of things. Basically if the DNS servers are up and
running the next thing to check for is whether the necesary DNS suffixes
are appended. This is assuming you dont always ping using FQDNs. Assuming
you are pinging from the GC which has copies of both
zones(machines.live.com and servers.company.net) and is configured to use
itself for name resolution, do a nslookup of the A records from both
domains. They should work. If the A records have registered reverse lookup
records in DNS and copies of the reverse lookup zones also exist on the GC
try doing a nslookup aginst an IP address from each domain. This should
work too. If you are using ping, Between each test and before each test
use ipconfig /flushdns to ensure the cache isnt returning the addresses.

Any help would be appreciated as to what is going on here. Thanks

HTH

M@