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In our local subnetwork we have a domain server. It's a Windows Server 2008 R2.

It was configured by following this guide I think.

My main domain is wm.local. My server is domainserver.wm.local. My devices are dev1.wm.local, dev2.wm.local etc.

It works fine most of the time, but sometimes a client cannot resolve an other device's domain name. For example I can ping the IP address of an other client, but pinging the FQDN results in: `Ping request could not find host dev2.wm.local. Please check the name and try again.'

when I whip up nslookup, I can actually look up dev2.wm.local without any problems:

> set q=a
> dev2.wm.local
Server:  domainserver.wm.local
Address:  192.168.1.203

Name:    dev2.wm.local
Address:  192.168.1.102

So the given domain can be resolved.

Restarting my network adapter solves the problem temporarily.

But for example ipconfig /flushdns does not solve the problem, the host is still unreachable for any request (ping, http, and remote desktop are the ways I'm trying).

Since this happens on more than one clients, I'm guessing that there is something misconfigured on the server.

What would be the best way to find the source of the problem?

Since I'm a programmer and not a system administrator I'm trying to search for a solution on the internet, but I have no first hand experience on how to configure a dns server.

Here is the output for ipconfig /all:

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : DEV7
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : wm.local
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : wm.local

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TAP-Win32 Adapter OAS
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.107(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.253
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.203
                                       194.149.0.157
                                       194.149.0.156
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter VirtualBox Host-Only Network:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-27-00-54-58
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::1122:84df:5fdf:99bd%20(Preferred)
   Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.153.189(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 369623079
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-14-DD-C7-42-F0-4D-A2-2F-40-D5

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.{C60B2904-AF7F-4C0F-94C3-AFF4718D6AE8}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{E3A87D29-B780-42CC-86F7-654B994B6BB2}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{9CC8F02B-BC21-4D34-8484-300C76989FC4}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #5
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
vinczemarton
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  • Does it work fine every time on the DNS server itself? If there aren't eventlog errors for DNS and an nslookup works every time then the issue is most likely on the client side and not the server. Can the clients resolve other FQDN's such as www.google.com when this happens? – TheCleaner Jul 11 '13 at 14:46
  • Yes, other FQDN's can be resolved just fine. What do you mean by eventlog errors? The eventlog of the dns server? It seems to be clean from errors (last error was 3 months ago). Might be a client problem but why would it happen on every client on the subnet? – vinczemarton Jul 11 '13 at 14:52
  • @SoonDead Can you paste the output of `ipconfig /all` ? – deppfx Jul 16 '13 at 07:48
  • @deppfx I have appended it at the end of the question. – vinczemarton Jul 24 '13 at 12:21
  • Can you capture the traffic sent and received by the client when a lookup fails? – Flup Jul 24 '13 at 12:46
  • @Flup I would have to install wireshark or something similar to do that, let's see if Doon's solution works, and if not, I'll install and learn to use wireshark, and post the results here. – vinczemarton Jul 24 '13 at 14:30

1 Answers1

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The problem is you have 3 DNS servers listed. and 2 of them appear to be your ISPS. Remove 194.149.0.157 and 194.149.0.156 as DNS servers, since if you ask them you will get NXdomain. DNS doesn't ask all 3 for an answer, it picks one and if it doesn't answer tries another, but if it answers (even negatively) that answer will be used. You can add those 2 name servers as forwarders to take advantage of their cache. but do that from your dns server, not the clients.

Doon
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  • Thanks. I'll test the new settings for a few hours/days, but this is very promising. The name servers are already added as forwarders on the local dns server. – vinczemarton Jul 24 '13 at 14:25