MyGeekProject

I recently built a secondary DNS to replace a failing until. It was pretty straight forward but took me a little bit to figure it out. I hope this helps you get it done faster.

To setup a DNS secondary you need to make sure that the NAMESERVER and ZONE TRANSFER are setup to allow the secondary server to transfer the information. Here are some good directions.

1. Primary DNS – Open the Forward Lookup Zones on the site you wish to sync with the secondary server. Right click on the DNS entry and goto Properties. Under the properties click on the Name Server. Then add your Secondary DNS name server IP address to the list. Then goto Zone Transfers and click the checkbox and choose the radio button for Only to servers listed on the Name Servers tab. Then save the information.

2. Secondary DNS – Open DNS MMC and then Right Click Forward Lookup Zones. Click on the New Zone…. The Wizard will show up. Click Next button then choose Secondary zone, then Next. Type your Zone Exactly the same as the Primary DNS name. Then enter the IP address for the Primary DNS server and click Add. Then click Next. Then confirm the information and click Finish.

3. You might need to check the new zone on the secondary DNS but if all goes well it should show all of the information exactly the same as the other Primary DNS server.

4. Now repeat over until all DNS entries are completed.

Note: I got these directions from the following website: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816518

If you have an additional network adaptor or need to change the ip address of an adaptor follow these command to change the information.

Modify: /etc/network/interfaces

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 10.10.1.101
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 10.10.1.0
        broadcast 10.10.1.255
        gateway 10.10.1.1
        # dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
        dns-nameservers 10.10.1.250
        dns-search domainname.com

Setting up the DNS service, modify: /etc/resolv.conf

search domainname.com
nameserver 10.10.1.250
nameserver 66.35.209.135

Modify the hosts file in /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1          localhost
10.10.1.101     subdomain.domainname.com subdomain
# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

After this has been changed then restart the network adapter.

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart