REMOTE SITE DOMAIN CONTROLLER

[IT GUY]

I have 3 Windows 2000 domain controllers. 2 are in our
main site. 1 is at a remote site. For whatever reason,
the people at the main site have started to request logon
from the remote domain controller. The first question is
why is it happening? Second, is there a way to make them
go to their local sites first and then check the remote
site if the local DCs are down?

Thanks in advance for any help I get.

 

[Simon Geary]

This should happen automatically if DNS is set up correctly and not
experiencing any problems and your sites and subnets are correctly defined.
DNS hosts site-wide and domain-wide records for locating a DC and a client
is supposed to first contact a DC in it's own site. If it can't do this it
will contact any DC in the domain at random.

Things to check: Are your sites and subnets configured properly? The IP
subnet of the remote client's and the remote DC should match up.
Is DNS up and running properly? Are the relevant SRV records existing and
correct? Run dcdiag on each DC to check for any general errors.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply! I know for a fact that the IP
addressing is accurate. I THINK DNS is working properly,
but I will check that. SRV records ???? Not sure what those
are. I will run the utility.

 

[Simon Geary]

SRV records are entries in DNS that point clients to domain controllers and
global catalogues (among other things). A client will request the SRV record
of a DC from DNS before it can log on. These articles might help you
understand them better.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=306602
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=247811
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=241515