Manually Creating DNS Records

The final step in implementing DNS is to populate the zone files with resource records. Remember, if your clients are all running Windows 2000 and the zone is configured for dynamic updates, the clients can add and update their own resource records. You can also manually add resource records to a zone file through the DNS console.

Types of Resource Records

Several resource records can be created. Table 2.3 summarizes some of the more common resource records you might come across. To view all the resource records supported by Windows 2000 DNS, right-click a zone and select Other New Records (see Figure 2.13).

Figure 2.13. DNS resource records.

Table 2.3. Common DNS Resource Records

Resource Record	Description
Host Address (A) Record	Maps a DNS name to an IP address.
Mail Exchanger (MX) Record	Routes messages to a specified mail exchanger for a specified DNS domain name.
Pointer (PTR) Records	Points to a location in the DNS namespace. PTR records are normally used for reverse lookups.
Alias (CNAME) Record	Specifies another DNS domain name for a name that is already referenced in another resource record.

Creating a Resource Record

Now that you're familiar with some of the common resource record types, let's look at how to manually add a resource record to a zone file (it sounds much more complicated than it actually is).

To create a new host record, simply right-click the zone in which you want to create the record and select the New Host option. In the New Host dialog box, type the name and IP address for the host. To automatically create a pointer record, select the Create associated pointer (PTR) record check box (see Figure 2.14). After you've filled in the information, click the Add Host button. The record appears under the zone within the DNS management console, as shown in Figure 2.15.

Figure 2.14. Adding a new host record.

Figure 2.15. A new host record within a zone.

To create additional resource records, simply select the type of record you want to create and fill in the required information.