DNS on Windows 2000, Second Edition

Sample Resolver Configurations

Let’s go over what some Windows 2000 resolver configurations look like on real hosts. Resolver configuration needs vary depending on whether or not a host runs a local name server, so we’ll cover both cases: hosts using remote name servers and hosts running name servers locally.

Remote Name Server

We, as the administrators of movie.edu, have been asked to configure a professor’s new workstation, which doesn’t run a name server. Deciding which domain the workstation belongs in is easy: there’s only movie.edu to choose from. However, the professor is working with researchers at Pixar on new shading algorithms, so perhaps it’d be wise to put pixar.com in her workstation’s list of DNS suffixes to append.

The new workstation is on the 192.249.249.0 network, so the closest name servers are wormhole.movie.edu (192.249.249.1) and terminator.movie.edu (192.249.249.3). As a rule, you should configure hosts to first use the closest name server available. (The closest possible name server is a name server on the local host; the next closest is a name server on the same subnet or network.) In this case, both name servers are equally close, but we know that wormhole is bigger (it’s a faster host, with more capacity).

Since this particular professor is known to get awfully vocal when she has problems with her computer, we’ll also add terminator.movie.edu (192.249.249.3) as a backup name server. That way, if wormhole is down for any reason, the professor’s workstation ...