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Windows 2003 Server DNS problem

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3 replies

by hereinoz

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Hi All,

We have a Windows 2003 SBS server installed which up until last night was running fine. It now appears that this machine is no longer acting as the DNS server for the network, even though the event logs are showing that the DNS server has started and all should be working well. No error messages, nothing. The server itself can access the Internet, and it is the gateway to the main network for this subgroup of workstations, but the workstations themselves are not picking up the DNS from the server.

I can get the workstations to access web sites by using IP addresses, rather than domain names, or I can set up the DNS servers of our ISP on each of the workstations, and it will work, but these are not satisfactory long term solutions.

If I manually set the IP address of the server as the DNS server, it still won't work.

There have not been any policy changes or permission changes at all since before the problem arose.

Has anyone seen this behaviour before, and/or are there any ideas out there as to what may be the problem? I will keep prodding away at it, but I am at a dead end at the moment.

Hope you can help.

Alan

3 replies

by millertimes

In manage your server in administrative tools run the DNS setup wizard again. Set your Foward and reverse lookup ranges. Inside the router set the primary DNS to your local DNS server. Then the secondary DNS to your ISP DNS or a known DNS.

by hereinoz

Yep, I ran the Internet Setup wizard again and that fixed it. There is no DNS setup wizard in Server Management, but the "all in one" Internet Set up seems to do the job.

I would still like to know why, after 8 months, the DNS service just loses the plot, with no error log, and needs to be re-set, but I guess there are probably people at Microsoft who would like to know that one as well.

Thanks for the info, that's another one I won't forget.

Cheers,

Alan.

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