DNS entries advice

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Level 1

44 points

DNS entries advice

OK here goes for the scenarios. Sorry if this makes me sound stupid, but I am stupid and need a little further understanding of DNS.

If anyone can point me to some further reading that doesn't melt my brain that would be fantastic!

For all the scenarios I have a SL Server connected to a well established Active Directory Domain and am checking DNS is correct and maybe what the correct setup should be.

Scenario 1

The Mac server is set up with Network settings> DNS> pointing to the Active Directory servers IP and then our borough server IP.

Server admin has DNS enabled and has a forward and reverse map for the Mac Server, in settings, top half is localnets, bottom half is the same server IP's as above.

Scenario 2

As above but Network Preferences has DNS entries for 127.0.0.1, AD Server IP and then Borough Server IP

Scenario 3

As above but 127.0.0.1 is replaced with the real world IP of my server 172.19.174.202

Scenario 4

As above but Server Admin DNS settings has records for all the Mac's on the network (these are in Active Directory's DNS settings though

sorry i'm a total goon but any help appreciated, i'm going insane!!!

timaceuk

Posted on Oct 10, 2011 12:46 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

John Lockwood

Level 6

13,685 points

Oct 10, 2011 5:22 AM in response to timaceuk

Open Directory - if your using it for user accounts, needs a DNS server to resolve the servers name and address. This DNS server does not have to be a Mac server.

Is your Active Directory domain the same domain name your going to use for Open Directory? If so you need to use the same DNS server for both and it would probably be better to use your existing Active Directory DNS server. If they are different domains then you could use the Mac DNS server as the DNS server in which case you normally have 127.0.0.1 (if the same Mac is doing this) or whatever the IP address is of a second Mac doing this.

You do not want two different servers trying to define the same DNS domain name as they will then almost certainly disagree.

Once you feel you have this corrected you need to run

sudo chanegip -checkhostname

in Terminal.app on the Mac server to verify things.

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Answer 2

Oct 10, 2011 5:28 AM in response to timaceuk

You definitely need to verify with the command (note there's a typo in John Lockwood's command) to ensure that the server has valid DNS available (somewhere):

sudo changeip -checkhostname

And here, given you're tied to AD, I'd consider disabling DNS on your Mac server entirely, and referencing and using the existing Windows DNS servers. (And I'm assuming there are multiple Windows DNS servers.)

And DNS is easy. The magic triangle configuration you're headed toward here will melt your brain, particularly when it goes off the rails.

😉

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