DNS Management Pack

The key functionality of DNS is to provide name resolution to help computers locate other machines and services. It is also one of the fundamental underpinnings of Active Directory. Without name resolution, Active Directory and other network services may cease to function. To help you maintain a healthy Domain Name System, this management pack will monitor the status of DNS, watch useful counters for performance indication and reporting, and warn when issues arise such as zone transfers, database issues, or registry issues.

Installation

The Windows DNS Server management pack consists of the following files:

• MicrosoftWindowsDNS.akm

• MicrosoftWindowsDNSReports.xml

• DNS MP Guide.doc

As of this writing, the latest version number is 05.0.3100.0000. After downloading the management pack, extract the contents to a common location, and follow the steps in Chapter 8 to import the management pack. After importing the management pack, check the version number against the version number stated in the Management Pack and Product Connector Catalog.

You can find more details in DNS MP Guide.doc, which comes with the management pack. This document can also be found online at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/mom/MOM2005/Library/.mspx.

Configuration

The DNS management pack requires no additional configuration after it has been imported. However, there are some things that may need to be done to support the MP, depending on your infrastructure.

If your DNS Servers are not at Windows Server 2003, then they may require the installation of the DNS WMI Provider. Unlike Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server does not come with this provider. If the provider is not installed, the management pack cannot obtain the necessary information from WMI. DNSProv.zip can be located in the Windows 2000 Resource Kit or obtained at ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/reskit/win2000/dnsprov.zip.

To help maintain availability, if your MOM infrastructure consists of more than one Management Server, ensure that your DNS Servers point to different Management Servers as their primary Management Server. This also helps with load balancing so that more than one Management Server is handling traffic from the majority of your DNS servers. Refer to Chapter 3 for details on the installation of MOM.

Components

Computers are not added to DNS groups without the inclusion of the attribute Windows Current Version. This attribute determines which DNS computer group to assign the computer. The attribute Microsoft DNS Server must also be satisfied.

In order for notifications to work properly, an operator must be assigned to the Network Administrators group. Refer to Chapter 6 for assigning operators to groups.

Attributes	Microsoft DNS Server
Computer Groups	Microsoft Windows 2000 DNS Server
	Microsoft Windows 2003 DNS Server
Notification Groups	Network Administrators

Scripts

The version as of this writing contains no scripts with configurable parameters.

Tasks

The following table lists the available tasks in this management pack. It also states the context that the task runs in.

Task	Context
Clear DNS Cache	Agent
Start DNS Scavenging	Agent
Enumerate DNS Servers on a Windows 2003 Server	Console
Ping DNS Servers on a Windows 2003 Server	Agent

Note 

If the tasks execute in the context of the Agent, LocalSystem will provides all necessary permissions. However, if the Agent runs in least privilege configurations, it may require additional permissions to execute some of the tasks. All console tasks are executed under the permission of the user using the Operator Console. If the user doesn't ordinarily have the rights to execute the task, using the task will fail.