DNS Server Installation

DNS Server Installation

The DNS service (Domain Name Service) is the Achilles heel of an Active Directory structure. Since network communication is performed by only using names for reasons of understandability (e.g. www.tomshardware.com), there must be a quasi-permanent conversion between the names and the IP addresses that are behind them - and vice versa. A forward lookup searches for an IP address based on a name, while the reverse lookup searches for a computer name based on an address.

The installation of the DNS service is over in a jiffy (screenshot above), only it usually doesn't work as desired right from the start.

Function of a Reverse Lookup. Source: Microsoft.

It is very important to install a Reverse Lookup Zone. It is only with this that the DNS server also able to establish names based on IP addresses.

DNS Server Installation, Continued

For our purposes, we need a primary zone, because we want to serve our complete local network with the DNS server. Selecting the option for Active Directory integration at the bottom of the dialog box is important.

Of course, we enter the address space of our local network as a network ID. In this case it is 192.168.1.x. We left the subnet mask at 255.255.255.0, as it was before in the properties of the network connection so that we can include 254 computers in the network. This is enough for small and medium-sized companies. Changing it to 255.255.0.0 would expand the segment to 64,516 possible computers, or more specifically, 64,516 IP addresses (254 times 254).

We only want safe dynamic updates. Manual updates take a lot of effort and therefore this option is skipped for most applications.

After confirmation, the Reverse Lookup Zone is installed.

DNS Server Installation, Continued

The last thing we still need is a pointer, which points to our subnet 192.168.1.0.

Here, the fully qualified domain name of the server must be given, which is testserver.testdomain.com in this case.

The best way to check if the DNS configuration was successful is via an nslookup, a ping. So that addresses and names outside the local network can also be addressed, we must still inform the DNS server about which server is higher-ranking than it is for external requests.

For the sake of simplicity, we enter the IP address of our DSL router as the DNS forwarder. It will automatically forward requests to the DNS server provided by the Internet provider. You could also enter this directly here.