DNS/Domain controllers

richard1032 · 4 Jul 2011 at 16:43

We currently have a windows 2003 domain with 8 domain controllers that I am going to raise to a 2008 functional domain. We will be building new servers with 2008 R2 and prep the forest/domain etc. What are the benefits and drawbacks to running the DNS services on the domain controllers? Would you recommend it, recommend against it or do you think it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things?

Penguin · 4 Jul 2011 at 16:53

Correct me if I'm wrong but i thought DNS had to run on 2008 R2 Domain Controllers....?

Either way we're running DNS on all our DC's & everything seems OK. But I'm sure someone a lot more qualified than me will be along to answer soon.

paradigm · 4 Jul 2011 at 17:52

Penguin said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but i thought DNS had to run on 2008 R2 Domain Controllers....?

Not at all, but there needs to be a DNS server for the domain before you can create one, so typically the first DNS server will be on the first DC.

m4cc45 · 4 Jul 2011 at 18:45

It's more to do with if you need to perform maintenance and have only one DC / DNS. If you have multiple there's no drawbacks really and having a server just to service DNS is really a waste.

As long as you have at least two then there's no real cons to doing it.

M.

PAz · 4 Jul 2011 at 19:09

If your zones are AD integrated and you have more than one server as said above, just put it on with the DC.

brainchylde · 11 Jul 2011 at 22:00

A side note here - on our 2008 DCs we had to disable eDNS when we had problems resolving external addresses (We used server level forwarders to a dedicated DNS servers - not sure if this made a difference). It's just a registry hack. Quite simple but stumped us for a while.