Troubleshooting DNS

Now as we had undergone thru some of the sites which provide tools for DNS troubleshooting in our previous post Lis of sites giving tools for DNS..(http://www.hackplanet.in/2011/04/list-of-websites-giving-tools-for-dns.html).  Lets discuss now that how to troubleshoot actually with the help of such websites.

Running nslookup returns nonexistent domain

If you run nslookup, you might see an error that looks like this:

C:\>nslookup

*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.1.1: Non-existent domain

*** Default servers are not available

Default Server: UnKnown

Address: 192.168.1.1

When nslookup starts, it attempts do a reverse lookup of the IP address of the DNS server. If the reverse lookup fails, nslookup returns the preceding error message, which is somewhat misleading. The solution is to either install a reverse lookup zone for your workstations or to ignore the message.

Netlogon Error 5774 - DNS Operation Refused

This error is typically caused by the use of a DNS server that does not allow dynamic update or is set to refuse operations from your computer. Sometimes, this is due to a workstation that points to the ISP's DNS server instead of an internal DNS server. In general, all internal servers and workstations should point to one or more internal DNS servers that in turn point to a DNS server that forwards to the Internet.

DNS Error 414 - The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted 

This error usually occurs when the computer is configured without a DNS domain name. If the computer is a DNS server that has only a single label name (e.g., kona2 versus kona2.reskit.net), any zone created will have the default SOA and NS records created using just a single label. This in turn will lead to invalid or failed referrals for the zone used to provide lookups for this zone.

DNS Error 5504 - The DNS Server encountered an invalid domain name in a packet from X.X.X.X

This error indicates that the DNS server has received a packet with an invalid domain name and the packet has been rejected. The most common cause of this is DNS cache pollution, as described in Knowledge Base (KB) article 241352 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241352).

Troubleshooting dynamic update problems

Dynamic update is a DNS feature that enables hosts to update their DNS details at the DNS server. Although easy to set up, there are some ways in which DNS dynamic update can fail. See the KB article 287156 for more details (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;287156)

Windows Server 2003 cannot resolve addresses that Windows 2000 can

In some cases, it appears that server is just not functioning and not resolving some names. The cause is that Extension Mechanisms for DNS (EDNS0) requests from the 2003 DNS server are not recognized by all other DNS servers. To resolve this, you should disable EDNS0 requests, using the DNScmd program from the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools folder and type dnscmd /config /enableednsprobes at a command prompt.

I guess this would help you guys. Any suggestions or comments are welcomed. :)