DNS: DNS servers assigned to the network adapter should respond consistently

  • Article

Updated: October 15, 2010

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

This topic is intended to address a specific issue identified by a Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer or Best Practices Analyzer scan. You should apply the information in this topic only to computers that have had the DNS Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer or DNS Best Practices Analyzer run against them and are experiencing the issue addressed by this topic. For more information about best practices and scans, see Best Practices Analyzer.

Operating System

Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

Product/Feature

DNS

Severity

Warning

Category

Operation

Issue

The DNS servers do not respond identically to queries for the forest root domain.

The DNS servers assigned to the network interface might be a mixture of intranet and Internet DNS servers.

Impact

DNS queries might fail or be delayed.

The DNS server might be unable to resolve some host names, or obtain inconsistent results. Since Active Directory (AD) replication relies on the ability of the DNS client service to resolve host names, AD replication may fail.

Resolution

Configure DNS servers on the network interface so that either both respond or neither responds to queries for the forest root domain.

Configure network properties for the adapter to use DNS servers that both belong to the organization’s domain. If the network adapter is used for external queries, then configure both DNS servers to be external to the domain. If DNS servers are assigned by DHCP, configure the DHCP scope properties to use DNS servers that both belong to the organization’s domain or that are both external to the organization’s domain.

Membership in Administrators, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete these procedures. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at Local and Domain Default Groups (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477).

To configure DNS servers on the network adapter

  1. Click Start, click Run, type control netconnections, and then press ENTER.

  2. Right-click the network connection, and then click Properties.

  3. If you are configuring IPv4 properties, click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and then click Properties. If you are configuring IPv6 properties, click Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.

  4. On the General tab, choose Use the following DNS server addresses, type the IP addresses of the DNS servers you wish to use next to Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server, click OK, and then click Close.

See Also

Other Resources

DHCP: The DNS server option should be configured for all IPv4 scopes
DHCP: The DNS server option should be configured for all IPv6 scopes