Microsoft Exchange Installer.

[Dean, Barry]

At my site we use BIND to host our DNS, we currently use Sun's version 9.3.5-P1 on Soalris 10 Intel.

Our domain is liv.ac.uk, and we have a Windows AD domain called livad.liv.ac.uk and the DNS for that is delegated.

One of my colleagues is convinced my DNS config is "broken", because when he installs Exchange Server it seems to do:

1) Ping the name you have typed for the server
2) On a negative response, adds a DNS name to the Windows DNS.

The machine they are doing this on has 2 DNS servers defined, both my internal recursive DNS machines.

The one they are pointing at as a "primary", caches the negative response caused by the ping for a period, and breaks the installer. It also means lookups of the name fail for everyone else using that server as a primary.

What negative response timer value do my DNS servers use? Do they get it from the SOA of livad.liv.ac.uk? In which case it is an hour. If not where from?

I will ask him if it is possible to pre-register the name/IP manually before running the installer, but I expect the answer "No the installer breaks if you do that".


---------------
Barry Dean
Networks Team
Web: http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~bvd/