May domains have joined the central active directory treee at ad.msu.edu
which allows the DNS lookups to be performed from throughout the world.
-tim
-----
Timothy D. First, MCSE, CNA [log in to unmask]
Sr. Information Technologist (517) 353-4420 x335
Administrative Information Services Fax: (517) 355-5176
Michigan State University
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Wolf [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 9:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MSUNAG] Windows DNS and Portable Computers
We are setting up a new Windows domain to replace our old NT domain and
we're facing what seems to be a problem with DNS. I'd like to know how
others have dealt with this.
The problem we foresee is with portable computers, which we always set
up to use DHCP. The computers are members of our domain and the users
log on as domain users. This works fine with our Windows NT domain.
Of course, with Active Directory, all of our domain computers have to be
able to do DNS lookups in our aec.local namespace. The "standard"
Microsoft way to do this seems to be either to a) run our own DHCP
server (which would cause problems on MSU's network) to go with our DNS
servers or b) override the automatic DNS setting for DHCP by putting in
the fixed addresses of our own DNS servers.
Our problem is that our portable computers are used for travel and get
plugged into networks all over the world. Right now this works fine
with just a standard, fully automatic DHCP setup. If for our new domain
we set the portables up as in b) above, I'm worried about what will
happen when someone plugs their computer into a network in Zambia. The
DHCP would still work properly to obtain an IP address for them, but
with DNS set to the fixed address of our server, every single DNS
request would have to go half way around the globe and back, which can't
be a desirable situation (poor performance).
When we discussed this with the Microsoft rep who was here a few weeks
ago, he agreed that would not be good and said that the solution was for
MSU's DNS server to have an entry for our local domain, pointing DNS
lookups for that domain to our server. Then the portable computers
could be set up with fully automatic DHCP, including automatic DNS, and
they would work properly regardless of where they are in the world.
I asked Doug Nelson about this and he said no one else on campus had
asked for this type of setup. How are the rest of you dealing with this
issue? Thanks.
--Chris
==============================================
Chris Wolf Computer Service Manager
Agricultural Economics [log in to unmask]
Michigan State University 517 353-5017
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