Configuring a standard Linux-based DNS server running BIND to service Windows 2000 clients can be tricky. Here’s what you need to know to make it work.
You’ve heard the old saying, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Well, if Microsoft were to adopt a corporate motto, it might be something more like, “If you can’t beat ‘em, embrace and extend ‘em.” Seriously, Microsoft knows when it’s fighting an uphill battle on a technical front. When it’s clear that a Microsoft-fostered initiative will not take over the world, they eventually adopt the dominant standard. Sort of…
With Windows 2000, Microsoft finally did away with WINS (Windows Internet Naming Service, Microsoft’s proprietary NETBIOS naming service) and began using the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet’s standard naming service. This seems like good news for those who run (or aspire to run) pure, simple, IP-based networks. However, Windows 2000 was written to work best with (guess what?) the Microsoft DNS Server.
Historically though, BIND, the Berkeley Internet Name Domain software, has been the most popular implementation of DNS. And while it’s certainly possible to support a Windows 2000 environment using a traditional BIND name server, it requires some special configuration. In this article, we’ll explore a number of configuration options and gain a thorough understanding of how to accommodate Windows 2000 with BIND. First though, let’s examine how Windows 2000 uses DNS.
Before we proceed, one quick note — for the purposes of this article, we assume that you are familiar with the inner workings of traditional BIND name servers. If you’re not, please…
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