multiple primary dns servers 1

[bcardona]

I was wondering if you can have two primary dns servers on a network?

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

You cant have 2 primary servers running the same DNS zone, because they wouldnt sync with each other and would have different data from each causing problems. You could however have 2 primary servers running different zones ie.

DNS1 running primary for domainx.com
DNS2 running primary for domainy.com

You CANT have

DNS1 running primary for domainx.com
DNS2 running primary for domianx.com

You would need to setup 1 of the servers as secondary server and get it to copy the zone over. In the event of a failure of the primary DNS server you are able to change the secondary server from secondary to primary.

 

[bcardona]

thanks Faithless, does that also hold true if one was on a seperate subnet?

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

You wouldnt want to run 2 primary servers for the same zone you will end up runnning into so many problems even if they are on different networks.

But thinking about this more i know alot of people run AD zones for their domain but also have their domain name registered with the ISP who are running the zones for the public. If you do this you will have to add the extra pointers in manaully for

http://www etc

on the local dns server so you are able to access external resources.

So its possible to run 2 primarys on different networks but just make sure you keep them roughly the same. You could run 2 primary;s on the same network but i think you would run into so many problems if you do.

 

[bcardona]

I will take your advice, thank you for the excellent explanations.

 

[Serbtastic]

You can easily run 2 primary DNS servers for the same zone, and it will not cause any problems.

 

[bcardona]

hey serbtastic,

how would i go about doing that without causing any problems, downtime for me is not an option.

 

[Serbtastic]

You simply set up the DNS servers as primary for the zone you want. There's nothing to configure between the 2, as neither will be aware of the other.

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

I have to disagree, if you running 2 dns servers on the same network running both as primary for the same zone then you will have more work todo and have to keep them both upto date with each other. Other wise when people come to access resources and 1 server is saying something different from the other the host looking for the resource could be pointed in the wrong direct to access the resource.

You are better off setting 1 up as a secondary server meaning it automatically copies the zone from the primary server every time there is a change. Meaning you will not run into not be able to access resources beacuse 1 of the servers has the wrong infomation.

If in the event your primary server was to fail for some reason then you can reconfigure your secondary to be the primary server for the zone, then when the primary server comes back up again you can configure it as the secondary meaning the zone is kept upto date.

 

[Serbtastic]

But technically, there is nothing wrong with setting up 2 primary DNS servers for the same zone. It will not cause any problems, as long as you update the records on both servers.

Now from a management point of view, I agree that a primary/secondary setup is easier.

Why do you want to run 2 primaries for the same zone? Can you explain your requirements?

 

[Code666]

is there a respon why you want to have a primary and secondary DNS set-up? i ask because if you can use AD integrated zones that would be ideal. zone trnasfers would be taken care of through AD replication and you would have a fault tolrant situation going for you. i run this for my network and it has worked like a charm. the zone transfers through AD would be smaller and secure.

 

[Code666]

more specifically:
AD integrated is a good choice...more secure (only machines that are members of the domain [that is, they have machines accounts in AD] can add themselves to DNS), minimizes zone transfer traffic (only updates are replicated not the whole zone when using primary and secondaries), but the decision should be made based on your current DNS environment. WIN2K DNS is capable of SRV records, dynamic updates, secure dynamic updates, incremental zone transfers, fast zone transfers, and zone transfer compression. hope this helps...faithless is correct, the more primaries you have for a zone the more confusion and work that lies ahead, my two cents.

 

[bcardona]

it is kind of strange the reason but here it goes, we have a warehouse several miles away from our hq. it is on the same network, via point to point, but on a different subnet, we have both internal and external web site applications, currently that warehouse connects to our internal websites, they want them to connect to external version of our websites, so i need a dns server with just external entries of these sites and at the same time with internal zone files so they could connect to some internal pc's, i was just kicking around the best way to do this., and i thought that you could not have two primary dns's but if you could i thought it would make it a little easier to keep organized. I hope that makes sense.

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

You could just setup a different pointer for them to connect to the external site. ie ext.yourdomain.com instead off

http://www.yourdomain.com

if you are using

http://www etc

as a pointer to your site.

 

[bcardona]

hey,code666

personally i dont want two primary and two secondaries, but the higher powers that be do, because they want our other warehouse to be its own entity, but on the same network, I have read good things about AD and all the options you mentioned but being a linux guy and fairly new to win2k dns, which is what I am running now internally, I am not sure how to set that up yet. but with the posts you and faithless gave me one primary is the way to go. thanks.

 

[Code666]

good luck bcardona, would like to hear how it turns out...