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Jordan said:
I have a utility where for some reason it cannot connect
to a domain controller with the pre w2k domain name
without it being in the HOSTS file. I don't want to have
to manage a bunch of HOSTS files on the PCs that have the
utility so I was wondering if it is OK to put MYDOMAIN as
an entry in the DNS and point it to a DC on my W2K
servers?
I don't see why not, but I wanted to be sure.
You can create the zone, but the client won't look in it due to the DNS
suffix search list. If the client does a lookup for a single-label name, the
DNS client sees it as a host name and will append the suffixes in the DNS
suffix search list and will not query DNS for the name without the suffixes.
Example, if you have mydomain.com in the DNS suffix search list the client
will query DNS for mydomain.mydomain.com and not for mydomain, unless you
add a trailing "." (dot) after the name, e.g. "mydomain." The trailing dot
stops the client from appending suffixes and will send the single-label
query to DNS.
The primary and Connection specific suffixes are appended by default, also
appended are parent suffixes of the Primary DNS suffix, if the Primary DNS
suffix is a third level name, if the primary DNS suffix is sub.mydomain.com,
then that name plus mydomain.com will be appended. There is an option of
deselecting append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix in TCP/IP
properties on the DNS tab. But that won't help you, your problem is getting
the system to stop appending in the first place without the trailing dot.
Of course, knowing the DNS suffixes are appended, you can create a host
named mydomain with the IP you want it to resolve to in the domain zone that
is in the DNS suffix search list. Then when the suffix is appended by the
client, it will return an IP address.
If you want to see the DNS suffix appending in action, run nslookup with
the -d2 option, e.g. nslookup -d2
