Question : Configuring a Windows 2003 DNS Server for an Intranet

I'm not quite a novice with DNS, but I'm definitely not an expert.  So bare with me if this is crazy or awkward.

So here's the scenario.  I have a network that doesn't touch the internet.  On the network there are 3 subnets.  Each subnet has 2 Windows 2003 Servers running Active Directory Integrated DNS.

This is where I'm unclear.  I configured DNS before I ran DC Promo and setup the Domain.  I figured that since they are not hitting the internet I could delete the root hints.  Well On the 2nd domain controller, I have exchange on each site.  For email to go between the sites, I added the IP addresses of the DNS servers from the other 2 sites to the forwarders page.  I also added the FQDN of those servers to the Root Hints page.

I don't know if this is a good configuration, or if it will present issues later.  Does anyone know if I should have done it differently or have any kind of recommendation for configuring DNS on windows servers for machines that dont touch the internet?

Is there even a white paper out there for Offline Networking and multiple domains?  I spent several hours last night googling this issue and about lost my mind!

Answer : Configuring a Windows 2003 DNS Server for an Intranet

HI there,

I would say that all you really need to do is to configure conditional forwarding between the three domains.

By deleting root hints you are in effect blocking queries for external hosts, but another method you could use is to configure a '.' zone on your servers. This effectively makes the server think it's a root server, and not forward queries on the root hints. This would be a less destructive way of achieving what you want. At least you could simply remove this zone if you do want to allow external access.

As long as you have conditional forwarding set up, then there is no point adding your internal servers as root hints, as they would never be used.

Tony