Configuring Wildcard DNS Records
There are instances in which a DNS administrator needs to have all hostnames or just non-existent ones for a zone to return the same IP address back to the DNS …
DHCP Reservation Limitations in Windows 2008 R2
With Windows Server 2008 R2, you may encounter that you are unable to add a DHCP reservation if the reservation you are attempting to create is not within the address …
Enabling LAN Routing on Windows Server 2008 R2
A router is a device that manages the flow of data between network segments subnets. A router directs packets based on the information it has in its own routing table. …
Changing the Display Names of Active Directory Users
By default, when a new user is created in Active Directory, the Full Name and Display Name attribute is generated using the FirstName LastName format. You can change this behavior …
The Core of Active Directory
The data that is stored in Active Directory is physically stored in just a few files. The information is mainly stored in a file called ntds.dit, but there are also …
Installing Windows Server 2012
In this tutorial, we are going to go through the steps to install Windows Server 2012. Microsoft continues to improve the installation process. If you have installed Windows Server 2008/2008 …
DNS May Fail to Resolve Top-Level Domain
If your Windows 2008 Server is running DNS Server Services and uses root hints to resolve Internet host name, it may fail to resolve queries for host names in certain …
Locating Inactive Computer Accounts in AD
When it comes to computer accounts, unfortunately, they seem to linger around even when computers are removed from the domain and retired. Over time, the number of computer accounts in …
Preventing Users from Joining the Domain
By default, when a Windows domain is created, authenticated users are granted the ability to join up to ten computers to the domain. While this may be very convenient from …
The DHCP Process: Negotiating a Lease
The process of obtaining an IP address from a DHCP server is fairly simple and straightforward. This basic process, while taken for granted by many network administrators, is key in …
What are Root Hints?
Root hints are DNS data stored in a DNS server. The root hints provide a list of preliminary resource records that can be used by the DNS service to locate …
What is an SOA Record in DNS?
The SOA record, or Start of Authority, specifies authoritative information about a DNS zone, including the primary name server, the email of the domain administrator, the domain serial number, and …