Newly configured/installed Windows 2016 domain controller DNS server no listening interfaces

Question

Hi,
On a pair of newly built Windows 2016 servers that were promoted to domain controllers, we find that TCP and UDP port 53 are only listening on loopback interfaces, not on the IPv4 address of the network card.
When we go into DNS console, right click the DNS server and select properties, within the 'Interfaces' tab we see that Listen on is set to All IP addresses, but the list of IP addresses is empty. Normally there would be one or more IP addresses listed here that are ticked.
We found a technet article where someone suggested running: dnscmd <servername> /resetlisteningaddresses
After running this command and restarting DNS console, we can now see the IP address listed under the DNS server properties 'interfaces' tab. Clients can now use the DNS server to resolve queries.

If we reboot the DNS server, this address disappears, and we need to run the command again.

Some points to note, this machine is running a NIC team to use two physical interfaces as a single interface. It does not run multiple IPv4 addresses or etc. It does not run RAS, DHCP or any other services. Just a very basic setup.

In all my years working with AD DNS servers I have not seen anything like this. I am hoping someone can help.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Yes, using static IPs.
Thank you.

Answer 2

Hi ,

If we reboot the DNS server, this address disappears

Please first check DNS event log to see if there are something related for us to troubleshooting.

dnscmd <servername> /resetlisteningaddresses will trigger creation of a registry value to store this configuration: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\DNS\Parameters\ListenAddresses.

I would suspect that Teaming NIC always comes later due to additional time needed to create the teaming NIC interface. Once DNS Server service is started and this issue is hit as teaming NIC is not ready yet. DNS Server checks existing IP addresses during service start and as none match the configured teaming NIC address, then this registry config is deemed invalid and deleted.

Please try to change the Startup type of DNS Server service to Automatic (Delayed Start) ,then check if the problem can be resolved.

Hope this can help you.

Best Regards,

Candy

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Answer 3

We have the same issue with two servers. Once NIC teaming is configured DNS IPs are not checked on the Listen to section.
Need to re-start DNS to have the NICs listed and checked.
Will try the delay start to see if it works.

We have created a batch file with a schedule task that re-starts the DNS upon reboot and it works.

Answer 4

Since nobody mentioned this yet: Are you using static IP addresses for the interfaces?