caddo65590 said:
Hi All,
I have 3 domains, 2 win2k domains and 1 NT4 domain.
The win2k domains all have its own dns servers. The NT4 domain uses our
external dns (ISP).
All 3 domains have their own internal clients
What would be the best dns setup for the internal clients in all three
domains so each client can communicate and map drives irrespective of the
domains?
Bidirectional trust exist among all 3 domains
A bi-directional trust between 3 domains is an example of a Mesh trust
configuration. It's a network configuration type that is documented in the
older NT4 domain models (others included Single-Master Domain model,
Multi-Master Domain model, etc). The formula to calculate the total number
of trusts required in a mesh is n(n-1) (example: 10 domains in a mesh need
90 trusts). The reason for the situation is due to NT4's flat, 2
dimensional, non-transitive Netbios architecture. Imagine going through 180
manual trusted+trusting steps just to create a simple 10 domain mesh.
This situation is exactly why W2K was created with DNS as the method of name
resolution. DNS supports hierarchy and DNS delegation.
Since W2K supports hierarchy and transitive trusts, a much better solution
is to create a parent /child domain tree and create a manual trust between
parent root and the NT4 domain. The advantages in such a structure include
the ability to delegate dns partitions (dns zones) and operate a domain
based on fully qualified domain names.
You can configure a root DNS in parent domain (with DNS forwarders) and
delegate a secondary zone in both the child W2K domain and the NT4 trusted
domain. You could even choose to have one DNS server serve the whole forest
without ever having a client using an external ISP DNS server directly. It
just doesn't make sense to be using a DNS server that can't resolve
internally in a private namespace.