Windows DNS server

[Celegorm]

So with the new house, I'm doing a new network & all that fun stuff. As part of it, I installed windows server 2012 Essentials (think windows home server x10). Because this is an active directory server by default, it also includes and forces a DNS server on you and any connected clients.

What I'm trying to figure out is how to setup the DNS server such that when the server is down (ie rebooting for updates) how the domain connected computers can still access the internet. While the server is up, I can reach websites just fine, but during reboots I get DNS errors because the only DNS server assigned to the computer is down.

Has anyone here configured a windows DNS server that could help lend a hand?

 

[BK_123]

Couldn't you point the PC's to another DNS server other than the server's like Google's or your ISP's and have it set in the router. I am not very good with configuring DNS on Server 2012 or in general.

 

[Celegorm]

If I do that then I get warnings from the best practices analyzer because the clients are not using the server as the dns (required for active directory) so that really wouldn't solve anything.

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[jmacavali]

Why not just set the server to restart at 2AM or something like that?

And also, is it worth the hassle when you're looking at 5 minutes of downtime to reboot at the most?

 

[Celegorm]

Why not just set the server to restart at 2AM or something like that?

And also, is it worth the hassle when you're looking at 5 minutes of downtime to reboot at the most?

Worth the hassle maybe not in the long run but right now as there's still a bunch of updates to do it's hard to browse the net during a reboot when there's no longer a DNS for a few minutes. I wasn't sure if this would be a quick easy thing to change or not.

I was also worried (and worries absolved yesterday) that when I'd take the laptop off site (aka away from home) that the server being the only DNS entry would cause problems. However it seems like when away from the home network, windows automatically switches the adapter to automatically find a dns server like normal.

 

[jmacavali]

Yes, when you connect to any network, the computer will grab whatever DNS server is available for that network.

Is it possible to push 2 ip address for DNS within DHCP? That way you could set up the secondary as a public DNS server.

 

[Celegorm]

To repsond to the point out of order:

Is it possible to push 2 ip address for DNS within DHCP? That way you could set up the secondary as a public DNS server.

Yes it is, but I do still want my router to handle the DHCP side of things. The entire DNS requirement was kind of an unfortunate surprise for me and it only affects the computers connected to the domain.

Yes, when you connect to any network, the computer will grab whatever DNS server is available for that network.

Yup, as above though, the domain connected computers get the dns set manually (I can see it in the network adapter's properties) at startup when it detects it's on the same network as my server. everything else that isn't connected to the domain (about half of my computers + cell phone, PS3 etc) receive their DNS info from the router. How it's not causing problems I'll never know.

 

[OhSnapWord]

If you use the server as a DHCP server as well, you should be able to set the secondary DNS server as something like 8.8.8.8

 

[Celegorm]

If you use the server as a DHCP server as well, you should be able to set the secondary DNS server as something like 8.8.8.8

How simple is that to setup? It does sound like just doing it through the DNS is more work than I was hoping (thus not really worth it) and I really only want my router to to deal with this all as it is virtually never down and I have a backup just in case it dies (which isn't true for the server)

 

[evan.briggs]

Well for you, you probably should point your dns on your computer's to be the routers ip. Because you're not using the servers dhcp. And in the router you can set the static dns back to your servers ip.