I have a Win2k domain that has recently started having problems with clients connecting to network shares. I attempted to disjoin/rejoin a client and have not been able to get it reconnected. At this point I noticed DNS was having problems. From the client I am not able to resolve the servers host name but I am able to hit it by FQDN:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>nslookup
Default Server: sh-server.domain
Address: 10.71.40.100
^ sh-server *************************unsuccessful when querying host name
Server: sh-server.domain
Address: 10.71.40.100
*** sh-server.domain can't find sh-server: Server failed
^ sh-server.domain *************successful when querying FQDN
Server: sh-server.domain
Address: 10.71.40.100
^ yahoo.com
Server: sh-server.domain
Address: 10.71.40.100
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to sh-server.domain timed-out
On the clients, under TCP/IP properties/Advanced/DNS, ensure that "Append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes" is selected and also that "Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix" is checked.
Also, for the FQDN in System Properties, ensure that "change primary DNS suffix when domain membership changes" is checked.
Make sure "domain" is in the client's DNS suffix list. If you're only using DNS resolution in your network (i.e. no WINS), then the client needs to know how to fully qualify hostnames. Without a DNS suffix defined, it has no way of knowing that "sh-server" and "sh-server.domain" are the same thing, and your DNS server will always assume that "sh-server" is fully qualified.
On the other hand, if you're using WINS,
nslookupwon't help you because it only deals with DNS. One easy way to verify WINS resolution (since there isn't a standard "winslookup" type utility) is to ping the target host: