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I've set first DNS value in my router to the Domain Controller's IP yet i'm unsure if i need to set say the ISP's DNS in the second entry or just point to the Domain Controller only.

Thanks for your help

SarvenAtam
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  • Technically you don't need to set anything in the router unless the router is also a DHCP server and is assigning it's configured DNS servers to the DHCP clients. If it is, then configure the router with only your DC/DNS server. – joeqwerty Feb 16 '18 at 16:34

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Point to the domain controller only. Per Microsoft documentation, Windows is free to choose to use any configured DNS server. There is no rule that will insure it uses only the primary DNS server. Therefore, having any non-DC DNS entries can and probably will break your computers’ ability to connect to network resources.

Sorry I cannot find the source of that info right now. But you will find what I just stated re-iterated through multiple best practice pages online.

Appleoddity
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  • Thanks for your reply, what you are saying is %100 accurate, i've read it somewhere else as well. Now how do i get internet to still work if DC is down? On another note, i pointed DNS1 on router to DC and removed DNS2, i'm no longer able to connect to the customer's site. I'm wondering, did the server reboot due to an update and this is why i no longer have internet or did changing the DNS as per above is the issue. Forwarders should be setup properly i'm sure as there were no issues until i changed the router.. – SarvenAtam Feb 16 '18 at 07:43
  • @SamyBoy A DC is considered critical infrastructure on a Windows domain. If there is a concern about internet access or any other outage when the DC goes down, create a secondary DC. I don’t know about the internet access. When you say you changed the router DNS settings you are talking about the DHCP settings that hand out DNS addresses to clients right? The router itself (WAN settings) should be using your ISP’s DNS servers, and the DC should be forwarding to the ISP’s DNS servers. – Appleoddity Feb 16 '18 at 13:02
  • Yes sir, DHCP on router had DNS pointing to the DC at this point, thanks for validating my setup. On another note some of the workstations have their static IP settings revert to none, say the gateway or the DNS setting dissapear randomly after a reboot...have you seen this before? – SarvenAtam Feb 18 '18 at 21:11
  • @SarvenAtam yes, I believe this happens when there is an ip conflict. You should see that in the event logs. You might have your dhcp range overlapping your static IP range. – Appleoddity Feb 19 '18 at 04:24
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I assume this is Active directory domain controller. I that case you you need to setup forwarder to your ISP's DNS on DC in order to resolve requests for zones other than yours. If you do what you suggested than in case DC fails hosts in your network will be able to resolve external zones but AD and your domain won't be working. I'd rather disable DHCP on router and run it on DC.

Ilya Murmantsev
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  • Thanks for your reply, actually i wanna make sure internet is not down when DC is down..just not sure how to go about this.. – SarvenAtam Feb 16 '18 at 07:41