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Issues with Slave DNS Server replication 2012 R2

Ian Rushton 1 Reputation point
2020-10-02T17:17:19.437+00:00

I am hoping someone may be able to help me!

We have 3 Server 2012 R2 EC2 instances within AWS. All are new build servers, and standalone servers.

Each machine has an elastic IP bound to it that is configured in DNS as our 3 name servers.

One server has been confiured as the Primary DNS server, and the other 2 are secondary/slave servers. All DNS is configured non-AD integrated.

Primary is configured to allow the other 2 nameservers to receive updates from the primary and that works as when setting up the slave zone, they connect and pick up the zones fine.

HOWEVER after a reboot, all zones report as "Zone never loaded". If i updated the zone on the primary server, the slaves both received the updates and then i can refresh and they show as running again.

The problem is that when the primary server failed earlier today, neither of the slave servers responded to DNS requests. both these servers were online at the time. The primary is now active and responds fine.

There are no errors in the DNS event logs on any servers, and they all load zones fine. if i transfer from master, the zones load and become running again.

I have deleted and recretaed the secondary zones, and have tested that i can pull the zones from the master servers using nslookup, configuring DNS as the primary NS and ls-d <zone> - perfect.

Running out of ideas - any help please?

Windows DHCP
Windows DHCP
Windows: A family of Microsoft operating systems that run across personal computers, tablets, laptops, phones, internet of things devices, self-contained mixed reality headsets, large collaboration screens, and other devices.DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). A communications protocol that lets network administrators manage centrally and automate the assignment of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in an organization's network.
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  1. Gloria Gu 3,891 Reputation points
    2020-10-05T09:06:25.387+00:00

    Hi,

    Thank you for posting in Q&A!

    The following is a similar case like your issue.
    dns-secondary-zones-zone-never-loaded

    "When he restarting the Secondary DNS Server and go into the properties of the zone it says "zone never loaded", However on the main Forward Lookup Zones screen it says the zone is running."
    He solved the problem by adding conditional forwarders. Another solution was "by right clicking on the zone and choosing Transfer a new copy of the zone from the Master."

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  2. Ian Rushton 1 Reputation point
    2020-10-05T09:23:48.223+00:00

    Thank you for the reply, unfortunately this doesn't answer my issue - i have already read that article.

    Conditional forwarders are not what i need in this situation - if the primary DNS fails, then so will the secondaries. Additionally, transferrring from master after evry reboot isn't really a solution when you have 15-20 forward and reverse DNS zones!

    This worked fine on Server 2012R2 DNS servers these replaced, and the configuraiton is identical.