Unable to resovle host name in other domains

  • Thread starter Thread starter Victor Racioppi
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Victor Racioppi

Hi I'm having a problem with resolving computer names in other domains. It
seems that dns isn't "smart" enough to look in another if the host name
isn't found in the domain the pc you're doing the resolving from is in.

I figured to go into advanced properties of the DNS settings and under
"append these dns suffixes in order" I entered all my domains in my forest.
I am now able to resolve host names without typing the fully qualified
domain name.

Now here's the question...is there a way to apply this to every client
without manually setting this on every single machine? Or maybe there is a
setting on the DNS server? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
VR> Or maybe there is a setting on the DNS server?

There is no setting. DNS servers, and the DNS protocol, deal solely in fully
qualified domain names. You are supplying unqualified domain names to your
applications, which the DNS Client has to turn into fully qualified domain
names before issuing a query to a DNS server.

Search paths are a menace, incidentally. You are unwise to rely upon them
heavily. In any case: If you wanted a single flat namespace for all of your
machine names, as you apparently do, why did you choose to have multiple
domains in the first place ?
 
Thanks for nothing Johny.... you should take a lesson from Rakesh on helpful
replies and not a reply that just answers a question with a question.

And we have multiple domains for geographical reasons and the size of our
company. For our purposes it's much easier to have someone manage our
different global locations. But in some cases we do need to access shares
between domains.

Obviously I'm not the only person that was having this problem because
Microsoft seemeed to address it in 20003 server with the passing of suffixes
through group policies.
 
Are your names in a single parent/child structure? For example: corp.com,
us.corp.com, van.us.corp.com, etc.? Or do you have multiple domains that
are either lateral or unrelated?

If the former is true, then you *should* have no problem, assuming that your
child domains are configured correctly, there are communications between the
parent and child domains, etc. If the latter is true, adding suffixes (one
way or the other) is the only solution that comes to mind.

Cheers

Keith
 
VR> Or maybe there is a setting on the DNS server?

JdeBP> There is no setting. DNS servers, and the DNS protocol,
JdeBP> deal solely in fully qualified domain names. You are
JdeBP> supplying unqualified domain names to your applications,
JdeBP> which the DNS Client has to turn into fully qualified
JdeBP> domain names before issuing a query to a DNS server.

VR> Thanks for nothing Johny.... you should take a lesson from
VR> Rakesh on helpful replies and not a reply that just answers
VR> a question with a question.

The supposed lack of helpfulness is entirely of your own making, and is a
problem with you, not with anyone else. As can be clearly seen, the reply
answered your question with a whole paragraph, in which there were no
questions at all.

An additional irony of your suggesting that I learn from Rakesh is that most
of his reply wasn't actually answering _either_ of the questions that you
posed (whereas mine started off by answering one of your questions in the very
first sentence). Instead, most of it was telling you all about devolution and
how to set the search path - both of which you clearly already knew. Is
spending all but the last two lines of the message telling you stuff that you
already know really what you would have us all aspire to ?

JdeBP> Search paths are a menace, incidentally. You are unwise to
JdeBP> rely upon them heavily. In any case: If you wanted a single
JdeBP> flat namespace for all of your machine names, as you
JdeBP> apparently do, why did you choose to have multiple domains
JdeBP> in the first place ?

VR> [...] we have multiple domains for geographical reasons and the
VR> size of our company. For our purposes it's much easier to have
VR> someone manage our different global locations. But in some
VR> cases we do need to access shares between domains.

That's not a good reason for wanting a single flat namespace for all of your
machine names. Sharing can employ fully qualified domain names. Is that your
sole reason ?

VR> Obviously I'm not the only person that was having this
VR> problem [...]

But you are one of the few of those people who ignore the good advice to avoid
having this problem in the first place, when given it. However, it is quite
probable that eventually you will encounter an unexpected name->address
mapping, or end up in a situation with conflicting search order requirements,
or find yourself wasting time doing all of the tasks that having separate
domains is supposed to prevent the need for. At that point, you ought to kick
yourself for failing to heed good advice from the outset.

Search paths are a menace. You are unwise to rely upon them heavily.
 
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