RRAS clients not updating WINS / DNS

[Jaap de Koning]

Hi,

In our company, we use laptops which use good-old dial-up networking to
connect to the main office. When connected, they run an application
which triggers a FTP session from a server to the client (yes, the
client is the FTP server).

The problem is, that whenever a user disconnects and reconnects, he
receives a new IP address from RRAS, but does not update his records in
DNS and WINS. This results in the server trying to reach an IP address
which is not online, and the user working with old data.

We use RRAS with a static pool, on the client all the DNS and WINS
settings are correctly displayed when i do a ipconfig /all, but its
still not working. I've allready ticked the box "register in DNS".

Does anyone have a clue what I'm doing wrong?

cheers,
Jaap de Koning

 

[Bill Grant]

WINS is notoriously slow to drop records, so that is probably not the
way to go.

I looked at this problem some time ago. DNS seemed to respond pretty
quickly. Are you saying that the remotes are not registering at all in DNS?
If so, check the zone they are set to register in. I set up a separate zone
for the remotes and set the clients to register in that one. Also check that
the DNS server is not set to listen on only the LAN interface.

 

[Jaap de Koning]

Hi Bill,

First of all, thanks for the reply.

I've set up the seperate zone for the remotes, but still to no avail.
Also I've checked if the server was listening on all IP adresses, which
is the case.

The strange thing is, when use a IPconfig /registerdns, it registers
just fine. Its just when someone dials in, it does not seem to
automatically update the DNS.

Any more suggestions which might help?

cheers,
Jaap de Koning

 

[Jaap de Koning]

A little update.

While trying to figure out whats wrong, I've discovered something else
that I find strange.

If memory serves me well, doesn't RRAS claim 10 or so IP adresses in
DHCP? I've converted RRAS from working with a static pool to DHCP, and
now when people try to log on to the network I get event 20169 in my
event viewer on the server. The clients are assigned a APIPA address
and are unable to use any of the network resources (logically).

The DHCP server is in the same subnet as my RRAS client, and is
anwsering to all my local clients (including the RRAS server). Also
there is enough free IP addresses in the DHCP scope. Also the DHCP
relay agent is installed on the RRAS server.

I'm at a loss here - I think that the DNS problems are linked to my
DHCP problems, but still, when I use a static pool and do a ipconfig
/registerdns on a client everything works.

Any help is appreciated!

cheers,
Jaap de Koning

 

[Bill Grant]

That is not really what the DHCP relay option is for. If your RRAS
server is on the same subnet as your DHCP server it wouldn't need a DHCP
relay agent anyway. But if your RRAS server is using APIPA addresses it is
not finding the DHCP server. There must be some other problem preventing it.

The DHCP relay agent is to allow the remote client to find a DHCP
server. The reason why you might want this isn't obvious. The remote client
does not get its network config from DHCP. It gets it from the RRAS server
itself as part of the PPP setup negotiation. That is why RRAS needs a static
address pool (or a pool of addresses which it leases from DHCP. If you stop
RRAS it should release these addresses and get a new batch when it
restarts).

After the connection is up, a client can get further DHCP options from a
DHCP server using a DHCPINFORM request. If the DHCP settings (eg DNS or WINS
addresses) are different from the ones it received from RRAS, the DHCP
server values override the originals. This is when you need the DHCP relay
agent if DHCP is not running on the same server as RRAS.

Also remember that you don't have to use either option for DNS or WINS
addresses. You can always hard code them on the clients if you need to.

 

[Jaap de Koning]

Bill,

Thanks again for the reply!

Ok, so I've switched back to a static pool (which is at the moment the
only way I get any usefull connection at all), but the original problem
remains. Whenever I dial in using a laptop the client does not register
itself automaticly in DNS. I have to use a ipconfig /registerdns to get
it to do that.

I've instructed my users with this workaround now, but I'm not entirely
happy with it - even worse, I still have the feeling I'm missing
something somewhere and I can't pinpoint it.

Any more suggestions?

regards,
Jaap de Koning

 

[Jaap de Koning]

Regretfully, my workaround did not work at all - I asked my users to do
a ipconfig /registerdns, but they get an error that there are not
enough rights to complete the action.