DNS on Windows Server 2003

DNS on Windows Server 2003

Chapter 1. Background
Section 1.1. A (Very) Brief History of the Internet
Section 1.2. On the Internet and Internets
Section 1.3. The Domain Name System in a Nutshell
Section 1.4. The History of the Microsoft DNS Server
Section 1.5. Must I Use DNS?

Chapter 2. How Does DNS Work?
Section 2.1. The Domain Namespace
Section 2.2. The Internet Domain Namespace
Section 2.3. Delegation
Section 2.4. Name Servers and Zones
Section 2.5. Resolvers
Section 2.6. Resolution
Section 2.7. Caching

Chapter 3. Where Do I Start?
Section 3.1. Which Name Server?
Section 3.2. Choosing a Domain Name

Chapter 4. Setting Up the Microsoft DNS Server
Section 4.1. Our Zone
Section 4.2. Installing the Microsoft DNS Server
Section 4.3. The DNS Console
Section 4.4. Setting Up DNS Data
Section 4.5. Running a Primary Master Name Server
Section 4.6. Running a Secondary Name Server
Section 4.7. Adding More Zones
Section 4.8. DNS Properties
Section 4.9. What Next?

Chapter 5. DNS and Electronic Mail
Section 5.1. MX Records
Section 5.2. Adding MX Records with the DNS Console
Section 5.3. What's a Mail Exchanger, Again?
Section 5.4. The MX Algorithm
Section 5.5. DNS and Exchange

Chapter 6. Configuring Hosts
Section 6.1. The Resolver
Section 6.2. Resolver Configuration
Section 6.3. Advanced Resolver Features
Section 6.4. Other Windows Resolvers
Section 6.5. Sample Resolver Configurations

Chapter 7. Maintaining the Microsoft DNS Server
Section 7.1. What About Signals?
Section 7.2. Logging
Section 7.3. Updating Zone Data
Section 7.4. Zone Datafile Controls
Section 7.5. Aging and Scavenging

Chapter 8. Integrating with Active Directory
Section 8.1. Active Directory Domains
Section 8.2. Storing Zones in Active Directory
Section 8.3. DNS as a Service Location Broker

Chapter 9. Growing Your Domain
Section 9.1. How Many Name Servers?
Section 9.2. Adding More Name Servers
Section 9.3. Registering Name Servers
Section 9.4. Changing TTLs
Section 9.5. Planning for Disasters
Section 9.6. Coping with Disaster

Chapter 10. Parenting
Section 10.1. When to Become a Parent
Section 10.2. How Many Children?
Section 10.3. What to Name Your Children
Section 10.4. How to Become a Parent: Creating Subdomains
Section 10.5. Subdomains of in-addr.arpa Domains
Section 10.6. Good Parenting
Section 10.7. Managing the Transition to Subdomains
Section 10.8. The Life of a Parent

Chapter 11. Advanced Features and Security
Section 11.1. New Ways to Make Changes
Section 11.2. WINS Linkage
Section 11.3. Building Up a Large, Sitewide Cache with Forwarders
Section 11.4. Load Sharing Between Mirrored Servers
Section 11.5. The ABCs of IPv6 Addressing
Section 11.6. Securing Your Name Server

Chapter 12. nslookup and dig
Section 12.1. Is nslookup a Good Tool?
Section 12.2. Interactive Versus Noninteractive
Section 12.3. Option Settings
Section 12.4. Avoiding the Search List
Section 12.5. Common Tasks
Section 12.6. Less Common Tasks
Section 12.7. Troubleshooting nslookup Problems
Section 12.8. Best of the Net
Section 12.9. Using dig

Chapter 13. Managing DNS from the Command Line
Section 13.1. Installing the DNS Server
Section 13.2. Stopping and Starting the DNS Server Service
Section 13.3. Managing the DNS Server Configuration
Section 13.4. An Installation and Configuration Batch Script
Section 13.5. Other Command-Line Utilities

Chapter 14. Managing DNS Programmatically
Section 14.1. WMI and the DNS Provider
Section 14.2. WMI Scripting with VBScript and Perl
Section 14.3. Server Classes
Section 14.4. Zone Classes
Section 14.5. Resource Record Classes

Chapter 15. Troubleshooting DNS
Section 15.1. Is DNS Really Your Problem?
Section 15.2. Checking the Cache
Section 15.3. Using DNSLint
Section 15.4. Potential Problem List
Section 15.5. Interoperability Problems
Section 15.6. Problem Symptoms

Chapter 16. Miscellaneous
Section 16.1. Using CNAME Records
Section 16.2. Wildcards
Section 16.3. A Limitation of MX Records
Section 16.4. DNS and Internet Firewalls
Section 16.5. Dial-up Connections

Appendix A. DNS Message Format and Resource Records
Section A.1. Master File Format
Section A.2. DNS Messages
Section A.3. Resource Record Data

Appendix B. Converting from BIND to the Microsoft DNS Server
Section B.1. Step 1: Change the DNS Server Startup Method to File
Section B.2. Step 2: Stop the Microsoft DNS Server
Section B.3. Step 3: Change the Zone Datafile Naming Convention
Section B.4. Step 4: Copy the Files
Section B.5. Step 5: Get a New Root Name Server Cache File
Section B.6. Step 6: Restart the DNS Server
Section B.7. Step 7: Change the DNS Server Startup Method to Registry

Appendix C. Top-Level Domains

Here's a more detailed, chapter-by-chapter breakdown:

Chapter 1 provides a little historical perspective and discusses the problems that motivated the development of DNS. It presents an overview of DNS theory.

Chapter 2 goes over DNS theory in more detail, including the DNS namespace, domains, and name servers. We also introduce important concepts such as name resolution and caching.

Chapter 3 covers how to choose and acquire your DNS software if you don't already have it and what to do with it once you've got it; that is, how to figure out what your domain name should be and how to contact the organization that can delegate your domain to you.

Chapter 4 details how to set up your first two name servers, including creating your name server database, starting up your name servers, and checking their operation.

Chapter 5 deals with DNS's MX record, which allows administrators to specify alternate hosts to handle a given destination's mail. The chapter covers mail-routing strategies for a variety of networks and hosts, including networks with firewalls and hosts without direct Internet connectivity.

Chapter 6 explains how to configure a Windows resolver.

Chapter 7 describes the periodic maintenance administrators must perform to keep their domains running smoothly, such as checking name server health and authority.

Chapter 8 covers how to design the namespace for your Active Directory forest, how to use application partitions for zone storage, and how to enable secure dynamic updates. The chapter ends with a description of the various resource records used by domain controllers.

Chapter 9 covers how to plan for the growth and evolution of your domain, including how to get big and how to plan for moves and outages.

Chapter 10 explores the joys of becoming a parent domain. We explain when to become a parent (i.e., create subdomains), what to call your children, how to create them (!), and how to watch over them.

Chapter 11 goes over name server configuration options that can help you tune your name server's performance, secure your name server, and ease administration.

Chapter 12 shows the ins and outs of the most popular tools for doing DNS debugging, including techniques for digging obscure information out of remote name servers.

Chapter 13 examines dnscmd and other command-line utilities that can be used for configuring, managing, and updating the Microsoft DNS Server.

Chapter 14 details how to program with Microsoft's WMI DNS provider. This chapter includes examples of reading and modifying name server configurations and updating zone data using scripts written in VBScript and Perl.

Chapter 15 covers many common DNS problems and their solutions and then describes a number of less common, harder-to-diagnose scenarios.

Chapter 16 ties up all the loose ends. We cover DNS wildcards, special configurations for networks that connect to the Internet through firewalls, and hosts and networks with intermittent Internet connectivity via dial-up.

Appendix A contains a byte-by-byte breakdown of the formats used in DNS queries and responses as well as a list of commonly used resource record types.

Appendix B covers migrating from an existing BIND 4 name server to the Microsoft DNS Server.

Appendix C lists the current top-level domains in the Internet domain namespace.