Windows Server 2003 Network Administration

Chapter 6. Creating a DNS Server

Strictly speaking, name resolution service is not needed for computers to communicate. It is, as the name implies, a service—specifically, a service intended to make the network more user-friendly. Computers are perfectly happy with IP addresses, but people prefer names. Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet standard service for mapping the names preferred by users into the IP addresses required by network protocols.

DNS is a client/server software system. The client side of DNS is called the resolver. It generates the queries for domain name information that are sent to the server. The DNS server software, which is called the name server, answers the resolver’s queries. Both sides of DNS require configuration.

This book covers three basic DNS configuration tasks: configuring the resolver, configuring the name server, and constructing the name server database files, called the zone files . All Windows systems, clients and servers, run the resolver, so it is part of the basic system configuration covered in Chapter 4. This chapter covers installing and configuring the DNS server and the zone files.

Tip

See the sections “Basic DNS Configuration” and “The DNS Tab” in Chapter 4 for a description of how the DNS client (the resolver) is configured.

Domains Versus Zones

Chapter 3 introduced the use of the terminology zone file when speaking of the DNS database file. The distinction between a DNS domain and a DNS zone can be confusing. A domain is a logical ...