Question : Windows 2003 cluster not resolving DNS names.

Hi,

Something weird has happened to me.

We have a w2k3 cluster working as a file server and providing service to a thousand of users. Somebody from the User support team has called me because many people couldn't get access from the server, even though many other people were working without any issue.

I tried to connect to the server thorugh RDP and couldn't getting a message saying that the RPC service was unavailable. Later, I tried to connect to the other node of the cluster without problemas and I didn't see any relevant in the Event Viewer.

A few minutes later the failing node started to work again.

The most weird came later as the failing node can't resolve DNS names, but just names from the local domain.

We have three isolated forests and the node couldn't resolve DNS names from the domain the node belongs to.

I run an ipconfig /flushdns command and that solved the problem.

Any ideas?.

Thank you.

Answer : Windows 2003 cluster not resolving DNS names.

If it happens again run:

ipconfig /displaydns

See what's in the cache before you purge it :)

Otherwise, check the DNS servers the cluster uses. It'll only cache replies, so if it fails a lookup it will only cache that if you get NXDOMAIN (a timeout will not be cached).

Chris