Win2k3 Server and Dynamic DNS

[jeffk]

Hi,

Novell guy here who has been told to get Win2k3 AD up and running. I am wondering if Dynamic DNS "must" be turned on for AD integrated DNS or is just a good idea? If it doesn't have to, but should, can I have some reasons. My boss doesn't like the idea of DDNS, but from what I have read it is a good idea.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[mlichstein]

It is not a requirement for active directory, but it is a VERY good idea. Otherwise you will need to manually enter all the SRV records in the netlogon.dns file. Depending on how many DCs, sites, global catalogs, etc you plan on having, that could be a lot of records.

I suspect your boss is concerned about DDNS because of security. In that case, you should enable secure DDNS.

 

[jeffk]

Thanks for the quick reply. We will actually only have 1 domain and 2 DC's so that wouldn't be a problem. The security issue we knew about, but his thing is why do we need all the workstations registering with DNS? I know that it can be turned off at the client so that's not an issue either. He is wondering if populating the DNS database with PC's is normal practice and does it cause a performance hit? We only have ~700 users.

Thanks again,

Jeff

 

[mlichstein]

Well no, it is not required to register clients, but it makes life much easier. DNS has an extremely small footprint on Windows 2000 and above, and will handle 700 computers with no problem.

Windows DNS can scale into the hundreds of thousands of records and beyond.