Routers VPN in office issue

[gadgethome]

Hi,

Looking for some advice. Office A is the head office and has the domain server located there. Office B connects to A through a VPN Vigor router to another Vigor router in office A.

In office B, sometimes the shared map drives will loose their connection, microsoft exchange will say disconnected in outlook. B's computers, tried changing the DNS settings but nothing seems to fix it. Set preferred DNS server to the 192.xxx domain server which is located in office A and then set alternative DNS server 8.8.8.8 (google dns). Office B users then say internet to external sites are slow. So swapped it to be 8.8.8.8 first and then 192 second. Seems to work well for some time, then microsoft exchange will say disconnected even though you can ping it and map drives will be unavailable.

Tried also using lmhost file to resolve the domain server but still the exchange server will say disconnect.

What are peoples view on the preferred and alternative DNS settings. Which order should they be in? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Him Her]

Preferably, you should have a local DNS server on each site. All systems then point to a local AD DNS server. The secondary DNS should be on the other site, each local DNS server should forward to a public DNS (8.8.8.8).

If there's no server on the second site then set the primary DNS to the AD DNS server and have that forward to the public DNS. In this case leave secondary DNS blank or set the same as primary so AD lookups remain internal.

If you don't do this you risk attempting AD lookups on a public DNS that will fail to resolve resulting in dropped drive mappings etc.

You don't say which version of MS Server you are running but you may want to consider implementing LMHOSTS at Office B to resolve MS UNC lookups.

 

[gadgethome]

Thanks for the info. Originally office B had its on DNS server but was taken away recently and it just uses the one in office A now.

Its using Microsoft SBS 2003. Its old and does need upgrading at some point.

 

[Him Her]

Thanks for the info. Originally office B had its on DNS server but was taken away recently and it just uses the one in office A now.

Its using Microsoft SBS 2003. Its old and does need upgrading at some point.

Hopefully it was properly demoted? In any case that would leave you exposed as there would be only a single copy of DS? Until you upgrade I would implement a backup DC in Office B running DNS on a basic system (a desktop would do). This would also serve as a DR system should the future upgrade go wrong - it would fix your DNS issue too!

 

[gadgethome]

Thanks for advice. Sound like I have a few things to try out tomorrow. Much appreciated.