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I've inherited an issue with 2 servers, one running SBS 2003 and one running WS2008 (non-R2). Periodically Google and other popular sites will appear down. Now obviously we know it's not a problem with the remote sites, it's become an internal joke such as "Google's down!" which of course it isn't.

It's resolved 99% of the time by simply restarting the DNS Server and DNS Client services on both server machines, then it works again. What is causing this and why? My logs don't appear to show anything relevant at the time of the incidents occuring, just notifications that the service has start/stopped (and yes I have clicked "Show all Events").

I'm trying to setup either Google DNS or the ISP's DNS so if our DNS fails the network can still access the internet, but am unsure of the best way of doing it. It's a live network in a business environment so I can't do too much experimenting. I'm thinking of just turning the DNS services off on the SBS machine and just retaining them on the WS2008 machine. Is this a good idea or not advised?

All the client PC's are on dynamic IP's from a pool of 100 IP's with plenty spare, and the several Mac's we have on-site are fixed IP's, but the problem appears more on Mac's than it does PC's and it's not all of them at, just specific client machines at a time, restarting the server's services fixes the issue. I need to rule out any DNS issues as we "think" we have an internet connection issue as well, with 1% packet loss on a fibre optic line, and naturally the ISP are saying it's our internal DNS and we're blaming them etc.

Many thanks.

fRAiLtY-
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2 Answers2

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Start by running DNS only on the server 2008 machine, and be sure if youre using that as your primary DNS server that it is set properly in the DHCP scope which I assume is also running on that server. If all machines are set to use that server as primary DNS, do not set secondary or third/fourth/etc DNS servers on the clients. If you must, only add google dns as a backup choice on the DNS server.

David
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    When you say "set properly", what does this entail? Also do I disable both DNS Client and DNS Server on the SBS2003 machine or just the server service? – fRAiLtY- Oct 12 '12 at 11:37
  • you still want to be able to perform DNS lookups on the sbs2003 server, so leave client on. Just remove dns server role. – David Oct 12 '12 at 12:27
  • I mean within the DHCP scope, what should be set where within here? – fRAiLtY- Oct 12 '12 at 14:21
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Do you have forwarders? If yes check if they are reliable, try different order, etc. If not maybe you can use as forwarders dns servers from your provider.

Laurentiu Roescu
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  • Hi, I didn't have any forwarders specified. I've added the 2 DNS servers provided by my ISP to this list, which they've both resolved OK. Is there anything else I need to do in my configuration? – fRAiLtY- Oct 12 '12 at 11:43