Integrating DNS and WINS Lookup

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

The DNS Server service provides the ability to use Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) servers to look up names that are not in the Domain Name System (DNS) domain namespace by checking the NetBIOS namespace that WINS manages.

To use WINS lookup integration, you can enable two special resource record types—the WINS and WINS-R resource records—and add them to a zone. When you use the WINS resource record, DNS queries that fail to find a host (A or AAAA) resource record in the zone are forwarded to the WINS servers that are configured in the WINS resource record. For reverse lookup zones, you can enable the WINS-R resource record and use it to resolve a reverse query that is not answerable in the reverse in-addr.arpa domain.

For example, you can use WINS lookup is when you have a mixed-mode client environment consisting of UNIX clients that use only DNS name resolution and earlier-version Microsoft clients that require NetBIOS naming. In these environments, WINS lookup makes it possible for UNIX DNS clients to locate your WINS clients by extending DNS host name resolution into the WINS-managed NetBIOS namespace.

The WINS lookup integration feature is supported only by Windows DNS servers. If you use a mixture of Windows servers and other DNS servers to host a zone, enable the Do not replicate this record check box option for any primary zones when you use the WINS lookup record. This prevents the WINS lookup record from being included in zone transfers to other DNS servers that do not support or recognize this record. If you do not enable the WINS lookup record to be used only on the local server, it can cause data errors or failed zone transfers at servers running other DNS server implementations that replicate the zone.

Note

As an alternative to using WINS for resolving single-label host names, you can configure DNS client computers to use suffix search lists. You can also deploy a specially named zone, called GlobalNames, to provide name resolution for a limited set of centrally managed host names. For more information about these alternatives to WINS, see Managing DNS Clients and Providing Single-Label DNS Name Resolution.

To complete this task, you can perform the following procedures: