Website DNS woes (simple, I think)

[Monkey36]

Hi all -

I'll be the first to admit I don't a lot about DNS setups, but I'm supposed to be trying to fix something on our Server here. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a simple answer, I'm just not having any luck finding it!

Our Server here is also a mail server running Exchange. All our computers are part of a domain with this Server, where the name of the domain name suffix is the what is found at the end of the mail addresses - ie. we get our mails whoever@ourdomain.com, our network computers are within the domain ourdomain.com.

Now the problem is that our website

http://www.ourdomain.com

is hosted by another company for us. Previously, someone had put a Host entry into the DNS information on the Server for "www" so that our staff could browse to our site correctly. However, this means that this record needs changing whenever the website IP changes.

What I really want to do is, if a record does not exist for something.ourdomain.com, for an external DNS to be consulted. This is fine on the Server as it has two network connections - internal and external, so it can use its external connection, along with external DNS when it fails to match a .ourdomain.com name. However, networked PCs will not do this - they are unable to resolve a name for a .ourdomain.com name that does not have a Host record on the Server.

I'm not even sure if I'm wording this right, and if someone could just drop me a "like this, stupid" note then I'd be a happy boy!

Thanks in advance,
Monkey36.

 

[Serbtastic]

This won't work, as you've (most likely) setup your internal DNS server to be authoritative for your domain name (ourdomain.com). What that means is that when your clients query for something.ourdomain.com, your DNS server is the authority and will not query anywhere else if it can't find the host record.

The only fix at this point is to add a record to the local hosts file on each machine for something.ourdomain.com (which can be an administrative nightmare in a large environment).

 

[Monkey36]

I see. Out of interest, what would the alternative have been to this setup?

Maybe it will be too much work to implement, but I'd be interested in doing some reading up - it just seems silly to me that we should need a hard-coded value for this one thing! Especially since it does change every now and then.

Thanks for the input so far, though.

 

[rtichnor]

Now the problem is that our website

http://www.ourdomain.com

is hosted by another company for us. Previously, someone had put a Host entry into the DNS information on the Server for "www" so that our staff could browse to our site correctly. However, this means that this record needs changing whenever the website IP changes.


Why would your website IP address change so frequently?

 

[Monkey36]

To be honest, it only changes from time to time. For example, over the weekend they said they had changed their Server backup solution, and the sites had been rearranged, so the IP address had changed.

It's not really a frequent issue, it's just that every time it arises, I think there must be a better way.

 

[rtichnor]

The easiest way is to change the host record (WWW) in DNS. Don't do anyhting else.

If the IP address changes are causing you grief (even if it is once or twice a year), I would bring the web site in-house.

 

[Monkey36]

Ok then. Thanks a lot for your advice!