WINDOWS 2003 AD With Win2000 Standalone DNS Server ?

[Josh Davis]

I have a standalone windows 2000 dns server on our network
that serves mainly as a caching server so that internal
clients can resolve public internet addresses. The ip address
of the server is assigned by DHCP to clients.


Now to my questions as I am having some trouble.

1 Can this DNS server be used to host AD records as I wish
to bring up a new DC based on windows 2003. Or is it better
to install DNS on the AD DC instead.


My config is as follows.

On the 2k dns server I created a new zone called zeus1.local
Enable Forwarders is checked so internal clients can resolve
internet addresses by pointing them to external dns servers.

For the actual zone zeus1.local I have enabled allow dynamic updates.


On the 2003 server the nic card points to the 2k dns server and I have
assigned it a dns name of zeus1.local both register this connection in
dns & use this connections dns suffix in dns registration are checked.
The computers net bios name is zeus

Running dcpromo and configuring the 2003 server as a primary DC i get
to the part where AD tries to register itself with the dns server. At
this point the install stops and says it was unable to register with
the dns server.

Anyone know where I am going wrong. ? I was thinking of upgrading the
2k dns server to 2003 server as an option.

Thanks ..... Josh..

 

[Chriss3 [MVP]]

I recommend you to place the zones for active directory on the domain
controller and use an Active Directory Integrated Zone. How ever you can
redirect requests to the particular domain name at the existing dns server
to the domain controller, but to do the forwarding on a specify domain name
I think the requirement is to run Windows Server 2003 for that feature.

With the information you have provided I can't see any use for having the
additional standalone dns server as long you don't host other internal or
external zones on it. Caching and external lookups will be fine anyway.

--
Regards
Christoffer Andersson
Microsoft MVP - Directory Services

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