msdsc folder out of place?

[crabby117]

I've recently come across a server which seems to behaving DNS problems. It's reported to me that the server (win2k3) must be rebooted about twice a week because all of the winxp workstations lose connectivity. (The win98 machines seem unaffected.) In looking at DNS on the server, I noticed something odd that I've never seen on another server before. The _msdsc folder seems to appear outside of the folder containing the domain name. My explanation is poor, I'm sure, so I posted a jpeg showing a screen capture of the DNS setup.

http://www.chasethedot.com/avatar/mnp.jpg

Can anyone tell me if this DNS structure seems normal or if I need to attempt a fix?

Thx.

 

[aznluvsmc]

It looks like somehow that folder has been set as a subdomain of the parent domain.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[aznluvsmc]

I would delete the _msdcs.inner.mpnevada.com domain and the grey folder under the inner.mpnevada.com domain. After that create a new domain under inner.mpnevada.com called _msdcs. Wait a few minutes and then the DNS service will populate the _msdcs domain with the proper records.

Hope that helps. Maybe somebody else can give some more technical insight as to what may have happened.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[aznluvsmc]

After some testing in my lab, here's what has happened from what I see. Somebody had created a new forward lookup zone called _msdcs.inner.mpnevada.com. When DNS looks at that zone, it will see that there is a domain called _msdcs in the inner.mpnevada.com domain already so it will think that it should be delegated to a seperate forward lookup zone. Hence the _msdcs domain under inner.mpnevada.com will contain an NS record pointing to the authoritative server for the _msdcs zone which in this case happens to be the same server but it could be on another server.

Sorry about the 3 responses, I ideas came to me at different times.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[crabby117]

Thanks, Steve. 3 responses is better than no responses! I'll see what happens when I try out your suggestion in response 2 tomorrow.

 

[crabby117]

The more I attempt to research DNS, the more intimidated I am to make any changes to what's existing. My DNS experience is limited to creating a single Forward Lookup Zone and having it auto populate with those folders with the leading underscore. I've never dealt with Reverse Lookup Zones and never seen that Cached Lookup folder. So I'm wondering now if there's a way to back up this DNS so that if my changes cause problems, I can restore it to the way it was. (I forgot to look for forwarders. Is it possible that their server is THE DNS server for their network and that they're not relying on external ISP DNS servers? That would make me even more reluctant to mess with it.)

My site contact tells me that their network is pretty simple in that they don't host email or web services, and they don't have anyone externally tap in (VPN or otherwise). They have an office of about 15 people, and indeed their server before this one was a simple workstation in a peer-to-peer environment. I'm not sure why their DNS (and DHCP scope options for that matter) have to be so complicated.

Speaking of DHCP, there's a ton of scope options in there that I'm not familiar with either including IP Layer Forwarding, Broadcast Address, NTP server, etc. My DHCP scope options experience has been limited to 004 Router, 006 DNS Servers, 044 WINS, and 046 WINS node type. Are the all the other options absolutely necessary?

http://www.chasethedot.com/avatar/mnp-dhcp.jpg

 

[aznluvsmc]

The majority of the available DHCP options often go unused. The options that you mentioned are usually the major one that are configured.

The reason you see the cached lookup folder is because the view option is set to advanced in the DNS MMC.

If the forward lookup zone you want to backup is a Standard zone there should be able to just copy the zone file which should be named inner.mpnevada.com.dns

If the zone is Active Directory-integrated, then you must perform an Active Directory backup.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+