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We're having some issues with our name resolution, but the first thing we're trying to figure out is whether our DNS server is resolving the names or if it's the DNS configured on our Router which connects us to our ISP.

What tests can I perform to figure this out?

Regards, Jacques

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Are the names you're trying to resolve local? Is the DNS server configured to use the router as a forwarder? Are the clients configured to use the server for DNS, or the router, or both? – joeqwerty Sep 15 '11 at 13:18
Each machine seems to be configured to use the Win Server 2008 as the primary DNS, the DNS server on the Win Server in turn has forwarders configured which is set to our ISPs DNS servers – Jacques Sep 15 '11 at 14:33
Then you're not using your router for DNS. – joeqwerty Sep 15 '11 at 14:43

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

from a client open a command prompt and run nslookup. It should tell you what DNS server it is connecting to. When you resolve a name it will tell you what server answers.

To see which server resolves a specific request, try using "dig somedomain.com +trace" to see the path it takes to find the answer

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Yip, that points to our internal DNS server. Our internal DNS uses forwarders, a few of them, is there a way to tell which DNS server our server uses when it can't resolve the name itself? I know it should go in the order specified in the forwarders section, just wondering if there's a way to tell exactly which servers are responding well – Jacques Sep 15 '11 at 14:35
Run a network capture on the DNS server and then open up a web page (HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) and watch the capture for DNS queries FROM your DNS server and see which forwarder is performing the DNS lookup for your server. – joeqwerty Sep 15 '11 at 14:44
If you have a Linux machine handy, use dig with the +trace option to see the resolution path. – uSlackr Sep 15 '11 at 20:06
up vote 1 down vote

Are you pointing your clients to a non active-directory DNS server? Even as a secondary DNS server, this is a bad idea. Stop it. Setup an additional DC with DNS and point your clients to that box as your secondary DNS. Once your done doing that, you'll know for sure that your clients are resolving names using one of your servers.

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As far as I know the internal clients point to the Win Server 2008 which is an SBS edition and as far as I know is an Active Directory server as well – Jacques Sep 15 '11 at 14:36
@Jacques - Then why are you asking if your router is resolving DNS? – Jason Berg Sep 15 '11 at 14:45

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