Win2k DNS

Hi,
I assume you have a 2000 dns server, and you want to query exterior addresses. On your 2000 dns server, in the dns pane, you will see a zone folder named simply . (IE full stop, or if you are American a period). This represents the "root" domain - it works like this, the actual FQDN for a domain is
mychilddomain.myparentdomain.com. (NOTE the full stop at the end). the final full stop says that there is nothing higher in the namespace, we (users, admins etc) don't see or use that fullstop because it is handled \ appended by the software 'behind the scenes'. The full stop folder in DNS is telling your dns server that it is authorative for the "." namespace, IE that it is the highest DNS server in the land.Whenever you type in an exterior DNS \ URL, your server looks at the full stop at the end (over which it believes it has authority), looks at the "." folder and sees that it's empty, and returns a host not found. All you need to do is delete the "." folder. What will happenthen is that your dns server will activate the 'root hints' tab, which at the moment should be greyed out. Into root hints it will load the cache.dns file,(from system32\dns\samples) which lists the root servers in use on the internet. Now, when youattempt to resolve an fqdn, if the name can't be resolved on your DNS servers, it will be forwarded onto the Internet root servers. This cut's out your ISP's server, which would simply forward your queries to the same root servers anyway... Hope it goes ok....
mcse2000already@here.com : )