Name services
The server supports the following name resolution methods:
- Domain Name System (DNS)
- NIS and LDAP (see Directory services)
- Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)
These methods associate computer identifiers (for example, IP addresses) with computer (host) names. This allows you to specify computer names rather than IP addresses in dialog boxes.
The server supports Dynamic Domain Name System (DDNS) for updating a name server.
DNS and DDNS
On TCP/IP networks, the Domain Name System (DNS) is used to resolve host names into IP addresses.
With DNS, records must be created manually for every host name and IP address. Starting with Windows 2000, Microsoft enabled support for Dynamic DNS, a DNS database which allows authenticated hosts to automatically add a record of their host name and IP address, eliminating the need for manual creation of records.
Registering a CIFS name
When an EVS goes online, the server registers one entry with the configured DNS servers (in both the forward and reverse lookup zones) for each configured ADS CIFS name and IP address associated with the EVS. Thus, the EVS records one entry in DDNS for every configured IP address. If a server has more than one configured ADS CIFS name, an entry for each IP address for each configured CIFS name is registered.
Each hostname registered with the DNS server has a Time To Live (TTL) property of 20 minutes, which is the amount of time other DNS servers and applications are allowed to cache it. The record's TTL dwindles with passing time and when the TTL finally reaches zero, the record is removed from the cache. After the 20-minute expiration point, the client must execute a fresh name lookup for more information.
The hostname is refreshed every 24 hours. This refresh commences after the first successful registration. For example, if the server registers its name at bootup, then every 24 hours after the bootup it refreshes its DNS entry. If the server cannot register or refresh its name, it goes into recovery mode with an attempt to register every 5 minutes. After it successfully registers, it resumes the 24 hours-per-refresh cycle.
WINS
WINS resolves NetBIOS names to IP addresses, and is used by the server to communicate with CIFS clients on the network. NetBIOS (and by extension, WINS) is not supported when multi-tenancy is enabled.