Migration from NT4 to 2K (Continued) 1

[ryoun1b]

Please refer to post thread96-389334

Does anyone know if I can bring up a staging server that only has the user accounts database from a PDC to a 2K DC during live production?

The existing BDC in the landscape is still hosting DNS, WINS, and DHCP.

Because windows 2K requires a DNS to be configured, I didn't know if this would adversely affect production users for resolving server names, etc.

 

[JackyZhang]

Install another server with Windows NT 4. Make it PDC with same domain, after all SAM are sync with BDC, upgrate it to W2K and setup AD on that one.


MCSE, MCP+Internet, CNE

 

[FilthPig]

Yes, you can set up a staging server. It's a good way to get upgraded. You will want to move DNS to your new 2000 machine, however. I cannot stress enough how important DNS is to active directory.

So how do you do this without effecting your users?

Install your new server with NT 4, install DNS on it, make a secondary zone of your main DNS on it. Now switch that zone on your new NT server to a primary zone and make the old server secondary, or even just a caching server using your new server as a forwarder. Update DHCP to tell your clients to point to the new DNS server and wait long enough for all leases to be renewed before upgrading to Windows 2000 server. Marc Creviere

 

[ryoun1b]

Excuse my ignorance, but I'm not a DNS guru by any means. How do I tell the DNS on NT4 to be a forwarder. In the scope of the DNS I found an option for IP Layer Forwarding. Is this all I need to do ?? Or do I need to give it some specific value. Its value by default is "0x0".

 

[FilthPig]

Right-click on the server in DNS manager and select properties. There will be a forwarders tab. Enable forwarding and specify your new DNS server (which must have the zone you wish to serve) in it. When you set up a DNS server as a forwarder, it looks to see what zones it's hosting, and if it doesn't find a result in those, it forwards the request over to whichever server you've specified here rather than querying the root servers. You only need to set this one up as a forwarder if you choose not to have it host a secondary zone for your domain.

Something else I thought of is that the forwarder option is only practical if it's for internal DNS. Are you serving internet host records on these same servers? If so, you definitly want to set up your old server as a secondary and keep the zone file on it so that you don't lose that.

Sounds like you're a little green on these things, so I'd recommend picking up a copy of Mastering Windows 2000 Server by Mark Minasi. Excellent source of information for 2K server admin, and has upgrade info and tips as well. Marc Creviere

 

[ryoun1b]

I was sucessful in bringing up my DNS server with both a forward lookup zone and a backward lookup zone. However, none of my clients can find a server on the lan using NSLOOKUP.

I can run NSLOOKUP on any of the servers and it works properly, but when I run the same query on a workstation it gives the error "Can't find server name for address: " Non-existant domain.

Same error occurs when you do an NSLOOKUP from a workstation with no parameters.

My DHCP server uses the DNS server as primary, then the ISP as secondary and tertiary. The DNS server is configured as a fowarder and is caching that information.

Any ideas??

Thanks.

 

[FilthPig]

Does your reverse lookup zone have pointers for your DNS server(s)? Lacking that will generate that error. Silly question, do you have host records for the server you're trying to look up? Marc Creviere

 

[ryoun1b]

Marc,

My reverse lookup zone does not contain any pointers. When I tried to add PTR records to it gives me an error:
Unable to register record - 10.1.1.2 (IP of my DNS Server).

I do have server records in my forward lookup zones.

My subnet is 10.1.1.0, so I set up my reverse lookup zone as 10.1.1.in-addr.arpa. When I try to add a record to this zone, the options are NS Record, PTR record, or TXT Record, but when I try to add a PTR record I receive the above error.

Richard

 

[brontosaurus]

you've got it backwards. It should be 1.1.10.in-addr.arpa