Apparent DNS failure on domain server running Small Business Server 2011

Grant156

8/9/24, 5:42 AM

I am a volunteer who provides IT support to a community radio station. I have only been with the station a short time, so I'm still trying to get my head around the hardware and the systems they are running. As is the case with many community radio stations, we don't have much money, so the systems we run are legacy systems on legacy hardware. One such system our domain controller, which runs Windows SBS 2011 with AD. Another such system is our radio station automation software (Jazler RadioStar 2), which runs on Windows 7 Pro systems. We have a fairly new Qnap NAS server which stores the media used by the Jazler automation software.

Yesterday I had a problem where, after a reboot, the Windows 7 Pro system could not reconnect to the NAS Server. In trying to fix the problem I changed the DNS address on the Windows 7 LAN Ethernet connection. For some reason the DNS address was 8.8.8.8. Since the PC in question is a member of our domain, I figured it would be better to set the DNS address to be the address of the domain controller - 192.168.30.2. At the time this seemed OK, but it didn't help resolve the NAS connection problem. I did eventually get that solved, but that's another story.

As I said, at the time changing the DNS address didn't seem to have any negative effect, but later in the day several other PCs started to lose internet connectivity. I became aware of this when I was no longer able to access these PCs remotely from home. When I started investigating, I found that the problem was with the DNS server. When I changed the DNS address for one of the PCs that had lost internet connection, it was restored. After a bit more testing, I determined it to be the DNS server, so I rebooted the domain controller. That seemed to fix the problem, but I would like to understand the cause of the problem. I rarely need to reboot the domain controller, and I have never previously had an issue with the DNS sever.

Is it possible that just by pointing a Windows 7 system at the DNS Server on the domain controller I could have introduced a problem?

0 + 4

domain-name-system

windows-7

windows-sbs-2011

Jan

8/9/24, 7:56 AM

Your second last paragraph needs more explaining. How exactly did you determine it was a DNS problem and what settings were you changing around on both client and server? Are all clients configured to point to 8.8.8.8? What is the forwarder in the DNS server configured to?

joeqwerty

8/9/24, 12:08 PM

**Is it possible that just by pointing a Windows 7 system at the DNS Server on the domain controller I could have introduced a problem?** - No. That's the way a domain member should be configured. You didn't introduce a problem, you brought an existing problem to light. My suggestion would be to hire someone to perform an assessment and health check of the Domain Controller.

Grant156

8/10/24, 12:36 AM

@DavidTrevor, I determined it was a DNS problem by changing the DNS address on the client. I changed it to point to the gateway router, 192.168.30.1, and when I did the client was able to access the internet. I then changed it back to point to the domain controller, and the client lost internet connection. The Windows 7 client is the only one I have encountered with a DNS address of 8.8.8.8. Others that I have looked at either point to the domain controller or to the gateway. There are no addresses in the Forwarder in the DNS server. It uses Root Hints.

Jan

8/10/24, 6:04 AM

Never seen a domain controller that relies on root hints solely. That's a performance hit for sure. I recommend entering two forwarders (i.e. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) in your DNS server. Also are clients assigned a static IP or via DHCP. If second, double check which DNS server gets passed to your DHCP clients that way.

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