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Ping reports more than one IP address

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7 replies

by blackcurrant 1 view

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Hi

I am using a Win XP (SP1) machine connected to a domain. The DC is a Win2k server running SBS server 2k, and there is only one domain. A DHCP server (on the DC) used to be used to dynamically assign IP Addresses in the range 192.168.0.50 - 192.168.0.100, with 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.49 being excluded, but this has been disabled. All the machines on the network now have static addresses.

This morning I was using ping -a to resolve each computer's host name, so that I could compile a list of which computer was using which IP Address. I pinged addresses 1 through to 60, and although not all the machines were able to return a host name, I discovered that my machine had 4 addresses. The first address was 192.168.0.3 and the host name returned was \\computer name (sans\\), the remainder were over 192.168.0.50 and the host name returned was the fully qualified domain name - computername.domainname.local.

I have checked my network adaptor and confirmed that I have just one IP Address. Does anyone know what is happening? Is the ping command retrieving data from defunct DHCP records on the DC?

7 replies

by oldefar

DHCP assigns IP, it does not provide DNS service, so that should not be an issue.

More likely you have either a local hosts file with the incorrect data or multiple entries in DNS. When you do a ping by name, the order of search for the IP is - local host file, then DNS.

The host file should be at C:/WINNT/system32/drivers/etc/hosts and can be viewed using notepad or wordpad.

by blackcurrant

Hi Oldefar, thanks for answering. I have checked the local hosts file and it is the standard (unedited) sample that MS provides. Can I check for multiple entries in DNS? Do you know how I can do this?

Thanks again.

by oldefar

Start by typing "nslookup" in the command prompt to get the name and IP address of the DNS server you are using. I assume you are using a local name server.

To repair entries in that server, use http://tinyurl.com/3e4a5 as a reference (Unix and Linux). There are some tools available that will make the job easier listed at this site.

From your machine, you can view what is going on by starting with nslookup from the command prompt, and then doing
>"ls -d DOMAIN" where domain is your domain. Quotes are not entered but indicate what to type.

by blackcurrant

Hi Oldefar, thanks again for answering. I found the duplicate addresses in the reverse lookup zone of the DNS server on the DC. Selecting properties for these indicated that they should be deleted if they become stale - although how stale they need to be before before being deleted is anyones guess - some of the entries date back to September last year... They do not appear to be impeding the network so I shall leave well alone.

by cg it

well if your running W2K SBS have to ask ...is the Server and all the other server stuff like Exchange, ISA server on one box? if so, are you using 2 NIC's [as SBS 2000 recommends using 2 NICs if you run ISA server on the same box]. Returning the \\.. is correct for the LAN DNS server record [ SBS assigns the . extention for your LAN].

As far as how many IP addresses your getting using the ping command, if your using a static scheme instead of DHCP [but began with DHCP] you might have some stale records laying around which were not released or scavenged or could be DNS didn't update itself or if your running RRAS with remote users getting an IP address from DHCP then you might be getting those IP address.

DHCP will reserve IP addresses .0 to .9 as a default AND reserve some for RRAS clients even if you no longer use DHCP for clients but have DHCP still running as a service.

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