Question : Unable to resolve Exchange server unless host file

Our office runs SBS 2003. Our laptops use Outlook 2003. When the laptop is out of office, we use windows XP's built in VPN connection.

However, once the VPN connection is established, it takes anything from 10 minutes to hours to resolve the exchange server name. The only way to get it working immediately is to add the server name into the laptop's host file.

Here's the way the networking is set up:

1) I bought the domain name "shire.externaldomain.com" from a registrar, and told them to point it to 210.xx.xx.114 (the public IP given to me by my ISP)

2) My Cisco 800 router is setup to direct 210.xx.xx.114 to our internal SBS2003 server at 10.0.0.2. The name of this server is yc000dc01.internaldomain.local

3) I setup the VPN connection to connect to shire.externaldomain.com, and it connects fine.

4) But, outlook will not connect for a long time. Sometimes never. Until I add 10.0.0.2 yc000dc01.internaldomain.local, then it connects fine.

But, if I do some ping tests, I get some strange results below.


===============================================
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\alex.tan>ping yc000dc01

Pinging yc000dc01.internaldomain.local [204.232.231.43] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=323ms TTL=107
Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=297ms TTL=107
Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=299ms TTL=107
Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=296ms TTL=107

Ping statistics for 204.232.231.43:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 296ms, Maximum = 323ms, Average = 303ms

C:\Documents and Settings\alex.tan>tracert yc000dc01

Tracing route to yc000dc01.internaldomain.local [204.232.231.43]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    30 ms     2 ms     2 ms  10.100.1.1
  2    35 ms    14 ms    12 ms  cm1.omega96.maxonline.com.sg [218.186.96.1]
  3    18 ms     9 ms    12 ms  172.20.22.1
  4    13 ms    10 ms    14 ms  172.26.22.1
  5    15 ms    15 ms    16 ms  172.20.7.26
  6    16 ms    13 ms    14 ms  172.20.7.42
  7    22 ms    20 ms    20 ms  203.116.17.65
  8    19 ms    17 ms    17 ms  203.118.3.226
  9   225 ms   225 ms   222 ms  so-7-0-1.edge6.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.53.22.1]
 10   230 ms   220 ms   219 ms  vlan79.csw2.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.68.18.126]
 11   233 ms   230 ms   232 ms  ae-84-84.ebr4.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.69.134.249]

 12   289 ms   289 ms   290 ms  ae-2-2.ebr2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.135.186]
 13   300 ms   290 ms   290 ms  ae-6-6.ebr2.NewYork2.Level3.net [4.69.141.22]
 14   299 ms   294 ms   293 ms  ae-1-100.ebr1.NewYork2.Level3.net [4.69.135.253]

 15   299 ms   296 ms   294 ms  ae-3-3.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.89]

 16   296 ms   306 ms   304 ms  ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
46]
 17   296 ms   298 ms   297 ms  ae-1-69.edge1.Washington4.Level3.net [4.68.17.18
]
 18   301 ms   297 ms   298 ms  RACKSPACE-M.edge1.Washington4.Level3.net [4.53.1
12.46]
 19   312 ms   299 ms   297 ms  vlan905.core5.iad2.rackspace.net [72.4.122.10]
 20   297 ms   297 ms   296 ms  aggr301a-2-core5.iad2.rackspace.net [72.4.122.12
5]
 21   299 ms   296 ms   293 ms  204.232.231.43

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\alex.tan>ping yc000dc01.internaldomain.local

Pinging YC000DC01.internaldomain.local [204.232.231.43] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=107
Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=296ms TTL=107
Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=296ms TTL=107
Reply from 204.232.231.43: bytes=32 time=295ms TTL=107

Ping statistics for 204.232.231.43:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 295ms, Maximum = 336ms, Average = 305ms

C:\Documents and Settings\alex.tan>ping 10.0.0.2

Pinging 10.0.0.2 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.2:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 23ms, Maximum = 57ms, Average = 32ms

C:\Documents and Settings\alex.tan>


========================================

It appears that even after connecting over VPN, I am not able to resolve the yc000dc01 server.

Can anybody provide advice on this? I want to avoid issuing updated host files to everyone's laptop.

Alex

Related Solutions: Can't resolve Exchange server via VPN

Answer : Unable to resolve Exchange server unless host file

Alright, your problem is here:

PPP adapter officevpn:

       Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
       Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
       IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.148
       Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
       Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
       DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2
                                           210.23.4.6

That second DNS server (the 210.23.4.6) should *NOT* be there. It is getting there one of two ways:

1) The RAS server is assigning it directly. You'll need to change this via RRAS.

2) More likely, RRAS is simply requesting several DHCP leases and then handing them out to VPN clients (the usual way this is configured) and that means your DHCP server is actually misconfigured and has external DNS entries in its options. This will not only cause problems for VPN clients, but will cause intermittent and bizarre AD behaviors internally as well.

Rember, clients should *only* point to the SBS server for DNS in an SBS network (a rule you can break if you know how and why, but is hard and fast rule 99.99999% of the time.)