Home / server / Questions / 283336
Accepted
Kieran Walsh
Asked: 2011-06-24 01:46:03 +0800 CST

Can't ping NETBIOS name of Server 2008 R2 domain

  • 772

I've got some general slight network errors on a network. As part of testing I've discovered that I can't ping the netbios name of the site.

Ping mydomain

Returns:

Ping request could not find host mydomain. Please check the name and try again.

But if I ping the FQDN there is no problem.

Any idea why that would be?

I've checked DNS and that seems to be fine. We are not using WINS - but internet searching seems to indicate that is only needed when trying to ping a NETBIOS name across different subnets - we are not doing that.

BTW, pinging the NETBIOS names of individual machines - including the DCs works fine.

windows-server-2008 domain-name-system networking active-directory windows-server-2008-r2

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    First of all: A domain is not listed in NETBIOS.

    As Igal mentioned above, the reason that ping works against the FQDN is because of the round-robin A-records of domain controllers.

    I'm guessing that your DNS suffix isnt correct on the client you're using ping from, as it fails to guess wich TLD "mydomain" is under. Please run ipconfig /all and double-check "DNS Suffix Search List".

    EDIT: Actually, this only works if your AD domain is in 3 parts or more. I can get it working on one of domains who are named "lan.domain.com", but not a domain called "domain.local".

    • 2

  2. Pinging is for machines not for doamins (who should answer the pinged domain?). I don't know your exact domain name but here is what is probably happening.

    Lets shay your domain name is mydomain.com and you have in the domain hosta.mydomain.com hostb.mydomain.com etc.

    When you do:

    ping hosta

    Your local machine query the dns for hosta ( and fail) then try to append the domain name so it query for hosta.mydomain.com and every thing is fine.

    When you ping the domain:

    ping mydomain

    your machine query the dns form mydomain and fail then try to append the domain name so it query for

    mydomain.mydomain.com

    and faile again. You local machine should not ( and does not) append the top level domain (e.g com org) to the dns query.

    The reason that pinging directly for mydomain.com is that you have an a record in your dns for the address mydomain.com.

    To sum it up. The dns and ping behavior in your domain are normal and usual.

    • 1

  3. Try pinging the fqdn of your domain. mydomain.local, or whatever it is. That should work. If you're not running wins, it won't know how to find the netbios name just like you mentioned.

    • 0

  4. If you have a 2 level domain you must include the top level in your search suffix list.

    For example if you domain is: domain.loc, you must add loc to the DNS search suffix list.

    If your adding a search suffix list to GP, it should look something like this: loc,domain.loc (although domain.loc should already be you Connection-specific DNS Suffix).

    Another option if you are not using GP to set the Search Suffix List is to enable primary DNS suffix devolution - only if you have the Connection Specific DNS Suffix set correctly, which should have the same effect by chopping the DNS request into pieces.

    Devolution will break your connection specific search suffix apart starting from the right by first appending .loc to all requests and then later domain.loc until it reaches the end if you have a 3 or 4 level domain.

    If you have none of the above implemented and you look at a DNS trace you will see your ping to "domain" is actually pinging "domain.domain.loc" - since its appending the Search Suffix list in order.

    • 0