Book Image

DNS in Action

By : CP Books a.s.
Book Image

DNS in Action

By: CP Books a.s.

Overview of this book

The Domain Name System is one of the foundations of the internet. It is the system that allows the translation of human-readable domain names into machines-readable IP addresses and the reverse translation of IP addresses into domain names. This book describes the basic DNS protocol and its extensions; DNS delegation and registration, including for reverse domains; using DNS servers in networks that are not connected to the internet; and using DNS servers on firewall machines. Many detailed examples are used throughout the book to show perform various configuration and administration tasks.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
DNS in Action
Credits
About the Authors
Preface
Country Codes and RIRs
Index

9.3 Root DNS Server in Windows 2000/2003


Windows 2000 behaves in a slightly different way if the DNS server is not configured as root and if the %SystemRoot%\system32\dns\cache.dns file is removed, Windows 2000/2003 does not attempt to contact any root name servers. It does not have, for these purposes, the root name server’s IP addresses hidden somewhere in the DNS server program code.

The documentation for Windows 2000/2003 actually states at least once that if you have a separate DNS in a closed intranet, you just need to delete the %SystemRoot%\system32\dns\cache.dns file. On the other hand, the same documentation recommends in many other places to follow the same instructions as presented here in Section 9.1 and 9.2. In fact, if you are doing the primary configuration of the DNS server, you are asked whether a root name server should be created. In such a case, Windows 2000/2003 will itself create a %SystemRoot%\system32\dns\root.dns zone file and it will edit the other files itself...