Master Zone May Not Work with BIND DNS for Windows 2000 Active Directory

ID: Q241973

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SYMPTOMS

When you are using BIND (a popular Domain Name System, or DNS, server implementation) DNS for a Windows 2000 Active Directory domain, the master zone may stop working with the following error message:

Master zone for "domain.com" (IN) rejected due to errors.

CAUSE

A Windows 2000 domain controller registers a host record for various locator services that do not conform to Request for Comments (RFC) 1123 restrictions on host names. For example, a host record is registered for the global catalog servers that takes the following form:

gc._mcdcs.domain.com

By default, a BIND server checks resource records to ensure that labels conform to RFC 1123. A master zone does not load if any invalid labels are found. Per RFC 1123, the underscore character ("_") is not valid for host resource records.

RESOLUTION

There are two methods to resolve this problem.

Method 1

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

Disable registration of the invalid host record. To disable the registration, follow these steps on all Windows 2000 domain controllers:

Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).

Locate the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters

On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:

Value Name: RegisterDnsARecords
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0

Quit Registry Editor.

Method 2

Disable name checking on the BIND DNS server. To disable name checking, add the following lines to the "/etc/named.conf" configuration file:

options {
check-names master ignore;
};

MORE INFORMATION

RFC 2181, which supercedes RFC 1123, allows for any binary string to be used for any resource record label.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q241980 Naming Syntax for the Domain Name System (DNS)

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Additional query words:

Keywords : kb3rdparty kbenv
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb