Windows 2000 DNS and Exchange Server 2003 problems

[alberto.palma]

Dears friends,

We have a network with 3 servers with AD installed on all of them. Two
of them are running windows 2000 server and the third one is running
windows 2003 with exchange server 2003.

We have installed a DNS on the servers running windows 2000 server, so
we have a secondary dns server in our network in case there is a crash
on the primary dns server.

The primary dns server acts as a forwarder to our isp's dns server.

The problem is that if we stop running the main server with dns,
exchnage server stops working and we are not able to log into
mailboxes and send mails.

Do you know how to avoid this dependency of exchange on the dns
servers ?

Is there any way to link the secondary dns server to the exchange
server in case the primary dns server fails ?

Thanks in advance!

Alberto

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

Dears friends,

We have a network with 3 servers with AD installed on all of them. Two
of them are running windows 2000 server and the third one is running
windows 2003 with exchange server 2003.

We have installed a DNS on the servers running windows 2000 server, so
we have a secondary dns server in our network in case there is a crash
on the primary dns server.

The primary dns server acts as a forwarder to our isp's dns server.

The problem is that if we stop running the main server with dns,
exchnage server stops working and we are not able to log into
mailboxes and send mails.

Do you know how to avoid this dependency of exchange on the dns
servers ?

Is there any way to link the secondary dns server to the exchange
server in case the primary dns server fails ?

Exchange 2003 requires AD, AD requires DNS, so no you can't avoid the
dependency.
Exchange also requires a Global Catalog, so you should probably also make
all a GC. In fact, that is probably your issue, the server you are calling
your primary may be your only GC, since you didn't mention Global Catalogs.
I would also wonder why you are using Primary and Secondary zones, when AD
integrated is more secure and will replicate to all DCs in the domain. Then
you can forward all to the ISP instead of just the one. You can configure
all three as DNS servers in TCP/IP properties, having one Preferred DNS and
two Alternate DNS servers.



--
Best regards,
Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]
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