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I currently have Routing & Remote Access enabled, and in the properties dialog, under the IPv4 tab, I am able to select DHCP or Static address pool.

I currently do not have DHCP role installed on my server, so I don't know how it is sending out IP addresses to VPN connections that come in. I wanted to configure DNS suffix search list for VPN clients. Can I do this without installing the DHCP role?

Thanks.

EDIT

Here is my ipconfig /all command while my VPN is connected. Notice how the VPN connection doesn't have a "Connection specific DNS suffix". I don't know why this is.

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : DTDEV7269w7
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : PACS.local
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : PACS.local

PPP adapter Home:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Home
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . :
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.3.1.21(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.3.1.120
                                       8.8.8.8
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : PACS.local
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) 82567LM-3 Gigabit Network Connec
tion
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-22-19-18-0A-C1
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::4c61:160d:87c7:5bb5%10(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.3.80(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, July 13, 2011 3:20:27 AM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, July 21, 2011 3:20:40 AM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.3.254
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.0.42
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 234889753
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-37-9B-F0-00-22-19-18-0A-C1

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.0.56
                                       172.16.0.42
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled
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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Do you have a DHCP server on the same network as the RRAS server? If so, that's where the RRAS server will get ip addresses for the VPN clients from. If not, then you'll create a static IP pool on the RRAS server for the VPN clients.

As far as the DNS suffix for the VPN clients is concerned, when using a static pool on the RRAS server the RRAS server will assign the same DNS servers to the VPN clients that are assigned to the NIC on the RRAS server that the VPN clients connect to so I'm assuming it assigns the same DNS suffix that's assigned to the NIC as well (connection specific DNS suffix), and barring that the one that's assigned to the computer, if joined to an AD domain (which is the primary DNS suffix).

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The only other DHCP server I have on my network is my router, which my server connects to directly. Does that count? Also when I connect to a VPN server, my client does not have a DNS suffix list containing the FQDN for the network I'm on as well as the VPN network. Because of this I can't resolve unqualified domain names on either network. – Robert Dailey Jul 14 '11 at 13:25
OK, here's the deal: Your router is assigning ip addresses to the VPN clients. RRAS (when configured to use DHCP) will allocate ip addresses from any DHCP server on the network on behalf of the VPN clients, so the router is where these ip addresses are coming from. The VPN clients don't have a DNS suffix because the router doesn't assign one. I might suggest configuring RRAS to use a static IP pool for the clients. My guess is that the VPN clients will then get the same DNS suffix as the server has, as well as getting the same DNS servers that are assigned to the RRAS server. – joeqwerty Jul 14 '11 at 14:24
I actually am using a static address pool that uses the same mask & IP prefix as my router. Maybe my problem isn't really related to RRAS as I thought? – Robert Dailey Jul 14 '11 at 14:29
I edited my OP to show the output of ipconfig /all. I think this might be a GPO issue with active directory. Shouldn't that be in control of sending a connection specific DNS suffix? – Robert Dailey Jul 14 '11 at 14:32
DNS suffixes don't come from a GPO unless you configure that GPO setting, which isn't required and isn't normally implemented. DNS suffixes come from the AD domain (primary DNS suffix) or from the connection (connection specific DNS suffix). Can you post the IP pool info and the RRAS bound NIC info? – joeqwerty Jul 14 '11 at 15:22
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