DNS SUFFIX

[Nics]

Hello,

I am trying to understand dns suffix. From what I understood the dns suffix of a pc has to include the domain name and additionally you can add on it for example. domain name is test.com and you can set dns suffix as south.test.com This would mean that this particular pc FQDN would be for example pc.south.test.com and which dns server has to point to the DNS server responsable for the south.test.com DNS. Continue with this example why from the pc if I ping for example server.test.com I also receive a reply from the same DNS server which has its Primary DNS suffix set to south.test.com
Also please explain in what situation dns suffix search list is useful to be used.

Thank you

[Triton.Deep]

This post is a little old, but I'll take a crack at it regardless. Generally speaking, the primary DNS suffix is nothing more than the fully qualified domain name of a computer. hostname.domainname.com. In an Active Directory domain, any computer joined to the domain is automatically assigned the network domain name as the primary dns suffix. That part is a piece of cake, easy to understand. Now, let's move on to the DNS suffix search list. Here is a quick illustration:

You have a single Active Directory forest with two domains.

Forest Root Domain(FRD): frd.com
Server in FRD: server1.frd.com
Child domain: child.com
Child domain workstation FQDN: childwks.child.com

Now assume that childwks needs to access servers in frd.com, but users don't want to type out server1.frd.com. One way (of many) to resolve this particular issue is to add "frd.com" to the DNS suffix search list. After it's been added, you can ping "server1" and your machine will automatically work through the DNS suffix search order looking for a successful reply.

Essentially, DNS Suffix search order means that anytime you try to resolve a hostname it will automatically append the dns suffix's to the name till it gets a successful resolution. You can modify the DNS Suffix list through the DHCP scope; it can be handy in certain situations. Saves users some keystrokes and makes name resolution a little more resilient and isn’t hard to configure.

Make sense?

J.

[Boycie]

Glad you signed up - that's a clear explanation. Thanks!

[Qs]

Originally Posted by Boyce

Glad you signed up - that's a clear explanation. Thanks!

Agreed, nicely done.

Qs