Home / server / Questions / 39697
Accepted
Jared Oberhaus
Asked: 2009-07-13 19:39:33 +0800 CST

DHCP failing to update DNS, no Active Directory

  • 772

I have a DHCP and DNS server, running Windows 2003 SP1. I configure everything according to this Microsoft Technet article "Using DNS servers with DHCP", but it does not work. Note that the client is a Linux client, but that should not matter; it did not work when it sent option 81 or when it only sent a hostname.

Also note the following documents/tutorials that we read:

In the logs I get the following messages:

30,07/10/09,16:31:04,DNS Update Request,151.28.30.10,hostname.testdomain.local,,MACHINE-317A15D\Administrator
31,07/10/09,16:31:51,DNS Update Failed,10.30.28.151,hostname.testdomain.local,2,
30,07/10/09,16:31:51,DNS Update Request,151.28.30.10,hostname.testdomain.local,,
10,07/10/09,16:31:51,Assign,10.30.28.151,hostname.testdomain.local,001D09117758,
31,07/10/09,16:46:08,DNS Update Failed,10.30.28.151,hostname.testdomain.local,-1,

One other clue I have is the following event log entry: Event Properties

with the following text:

The DNS server machine currently has no DNS domain name. Its DNS name is a single label hostname with no domain (example: "host" rather than "host.microsoft.com").

You might have forgotten to configure a primary DNS domain for the server computer. For more information, see either "DNS server log reference" or "To configure the primary DNS suffix for a client computer" in the online Help.

While the DNS server has only a single label name, all zones created will have default records (SOA and NS) created using only this single label name for the server's hostname. This can lead to incorrect and failed referrals when clients and other DNS servers use these records to locate this server by name.

To correct this problem:
1) open Control Panel
2) open System applet
3) select Computer Name tab
4) click the "Change" button and join the computer to a domain or workgroup; this name will be used as your DNS domain name
5) reboot to initialize with new domain name

After reboot, the DNS server will attempt to fix up default records, substituting new DNS name of this server, for old single label name. However, you should review to make sure zone's SOA and NS records now properly use correct domain name of this server

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

This question is almost identical to this earlier ServerFault question, except that in this case the DHCP/DNS server are not joined to an ActiveDirectory domain. Also it is different from this other ServerFault question, because in my case the logs do indicate a failure, not success.

windows-server-2003 domain-name-system dhcp active-directory

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This is not possible. As the Event log states, you must join a domain for this to work. The Active Directory domain name is used as the DNS domain name for the system.

    As soon as we recreated the configuration with the DHCP/DNS server joined to Active Directory, it all worked.

    • 2