You might set some auditing on the DNS containers in AD such that events get 
logged when the entries get deleted and see where it's coming from. I'd venture 
to guess that your records aren't being refreshed for one reason or another and 
are thus being scavenged.

Don't forget there are two scavenging settings:


è The interval the actual thread runs (this is on the properties of the DNS 
server in the UI)

è The timeout for the zone (this is on the properties of the zone, Advanced tab 
or something similar in the UI)

Thanks,
Brian Desmond
br...@briandesmond.com

c - 312.731.3132

From: Sauvigne, Craig M [mailto:sauvig...@winthrop.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 10:04 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Weird DNS issue

I sent this earlier but had a technical issue so it may not have gone out. Here 
it is again.

Let's see if I can answer everyone's questions. I should have given all this 
info in my original post but was rushed while trying to send it.

The DNS entry does actually disappear from the zone on the DNS servers (we have 
two and the entries are gone from both). Each building (which means each lab) 
is in a different subnet.

We are a Windows shop so our DNS, DHCP, AD (obviously) are all Windows boxes. 
We have a few Win2000 but most are Win2003 (no 2008 just yet). Scavenging is 
set to 7 days.

When running an nslookup by hostname or FQDN, it returns a message saying 
"non-existent domain". Sometimes, other machines in that lab may respond.

I have checked the configs for our different zones and they look the same. This 
issue only affects the one zone that is used for our computer labs.

And we are a single site.

I think that was just about all the questions. Let me know if there is more I 
can provide to help get this resolved.

Thanks everyone!

Craig


________________________________
From: Stephan Barr on behalf of lists
Sent: Thu 29-Jan-09 5:10 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Weird DNS issue
Tell us more please.  One subnet or more? Windows version.  All in one site or 
more?  What does your DNS config look like?

Cheers.

________________________________
From: Sauvigne, Craig M [mailto:sauvig...@winthrop.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:00 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Weird DNS issue

Okay. I have something odd going on that I can't seem to nail down.

I work for a University and we have a home-grown system that monitors all the 
lab computers around campus to see if someone is logged on (headcount 
tracking). Every few weeks, that system will suddenly show labs as empty that 
are not. In troubleshooting, we have found that those empty seats result from 
those machines having lost their record in DNS. The machines can't be pinged by 
hostname since there is no DNS entry anymore. The machines are still online 
(ping by IP works, remote management by IP works, computer is still usable). It 
just drops out of DNS. Today this happened in the middle of the day. The 
machines worked fine until around 1pm or 2pm. I don't show anything in logs on 
the DNS servers that look relevant.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can look for? It is an odd one because it 
is random when it happens and random as to which machines are affected. It 
usually happens to a full lab of computers but other machines in that building 
are unaffected.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

====================
Craig M. Sauvigne
System Administrator
Winthrop University
Rock Hill, SC 29733
sauvig...@winthrop.edu
SC143

















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