How to Replicate DNS Zones

The first thing you need to do is to be sure that all your servers have DNS enabled.

Right click Forward Lookup Zones and select New Zone. Then select Next and then select Primary Zone. For the Zone Name we will call it Training.com. The next window will then ask if we want to create a new zone file or use an existing file from another DNS server. Here we will create a new file and it will be called Training.com.dns. Select do not allow dynamic updates and Next. Click finish and your Primary Zone is now created.

In order to replicate this zone to the other servers, right click the zone you just created and select Properties.

Click on Zone Transfers and be sure that the setting Allow zone transfers is ticked. Then be sure that Only to servers listed on the Names Servers tab is selected here.

Now, click on the Name Servers tab and select add. And add the IP address of the General Server.

Now go to the General Server machine and load DNS and right click Forward Lookup Zone and select New Zone. Be sure to select Secondary Zone here as Dublin is your Primary Zone and is the only server with read and write access.

After selecting Secondary zone, click next. Enter the zone name Training.com.

Next we will enter the IP address of the Dublin Server as that is the Master of the General Server.

Select next and then finish. The General Server is now part of the Training.com zone.

In order to replicate this zone to the Windows 2008 Router, we must go back to the Dublin Server and add the Windows 2008 Router to the Name Servers. Select add and be sure to enter both IP addresses of the Windows 2008 Router.

Click Apply and OK and this IP will now be added to the zone. Now go to the Router and load DNS. Right click Forward Lookup Zones and select New zone. Select Secondary zone and enter Training.com for your Zone name.

After clicking next, we enter the IP address of the General Server that is the closest to the Windows 2008 Router. Remember, the General Server is the master server of the Windows 2008 Router.

Select next and finish. Now we will replicate the zone to the Tallaght Server from the Windows 2008 Router. First we need to go back to the Dublin Server and go to the Name Servers tab again and add the IP address of the Tallaght Server which is 192.168.0.2.

Click apply and OK. Now we will go to the Tallaght Server and create a new zone. Select Secondary zone and enter Training.com into the zone name. Next we will enter the Windows 2008 Routers IP address into the Masters Servers. Enter 192.168.0.1 as this is the IP address that is the nearest to the Tallaght Server.

Select next and finish. To ensure all of the servers are replicated in the zone you should see a window in all servers similar to this:

Another way to ensure they are replicated is by creating a new Host A record in the Dublin Server. Go to the Dublin Server and right click Training.com and select new Host A record as seen below:

After selecting New Host, enter a name you want to call the host. For my example I used my own name and just used 1.1.1.1 as an example.

Click Add Host and then click done. After doing this go onto all your servers and refresh the Training.com zone and if you see this host on the list it means your zone is replicating on all servers.