Some W2K clients unable to access internet

My local network (a mix of W2K and XP clients on a Win 2003 Server network)
has been having some problems.

First, some clients would randomly go offline, which I was able to solve by
replacing the ISP's IP address, which we had been using as an alternate DNS
entry with the Server's IP, so that the servers IP is the primary and
secondary DNS on each client. That's all fine, but now the clients are
unable to access the internet.

It is clearly a DNS problem, as the server itself is able to access the
internet, and I am able to ping external IP addresses from the clients (i.e.
216.109.118.74 is reachable but www.yahoo.com is not). The server's DNS
server appears to have forwarding set up properly, as my ISP's DNS entries
are listed in the forwarding tab when I right click the server in
Administrative Tools_DNS_Properties.

Any thoughts as to why this is occuring? The only solution is to revert to
the previous situation and have my ISP's DNS server listed as the second
entry on each client, and then I'll be back to dealing with the clients
randomly going offline again.

--
Hurricane Andrew

Hello Andrew,
In the DNS Server properties, on the Forwarders tab, what is the value you
have under "DNS domain:?"
It should read "All other DNS domains"

hth

"Hurricane Andrew" <hurricane_andrew@nospam_verizon.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> My local network (a mix of W2K and XP clients on a Win 2003 Server
> network) has been having some problems.
>
> First, some clients would randomly go offline, which I was able to solve
> by replacing the ISP's IP address, which we had been using as an alternate
> DNS entry with the Server's IP, so that the servers IP is the primary and
> secondary DNS on each client. That's all fine, but now the clients are
> unable to access the internet.
>
> It is clearly a DNS problem, as the server itself is able to access the
> internet, and I am able to ping external IP addresses from the clients
> (i.e. 216.109.118.74 is reachable but www.yahoo.com is not). The server's
> DNS server appears to have forwarding set up properly, as my ISP's DNS
> entries are listed in the forwarding tab when I right click the server in
> Administrative Tools_DNS_Properties.
>
> Any thoughts as to why this is occuring? The only solution is to revert
> to the previous situation and have my ISP's DNS server listed as the
> second entry on each client, and then I'll be back to dealing with the
> clients randomly going offline again.
>
> --
> Hurricane Andrew
>

"Barry Oxenberg" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello Andrew,
> In the DNS Server properties, on the Forwarders tab, what is the value you
> have under "DNS domain:?"
> It should read "All other DNS domains"


Yes, unfortunately that is already the setting

Also, under interfaces, I presently have it set to All Addresses, though I
tried setting it to Only the Following IP address without any luck.


--
Hurricane Andrew

"Hurricane Andrew" <hurricane_andrew@nospam_verizon.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> My local network (a mix of W2K and XP clients on a Win 2003 Server
> network) has been having some problems.
>
> First, some clients would randomly go offline, which I was able to solve
> by replacing the ISP's IP address, which we had been using as an alternate
> DNS entry with the Server's IP, so that the servers IP is the primary and
> secondary DNS on each client. That's all fine, but now the clients are
> unable to access the internet.
>
> It is clearly a DNS problem, as the server itself is able to access the
> internet, and I am able to ping external IP addresses from the clients
> (i.e. 216.109.118.74 is reachable but www.yahoo.com is not). The server's
> DNS server appears to have forwarding set up properly, as my ISP's DNS
> entries are listed in the forwarding tab when I right click the server in
> Administrative Tools_DNS_Properties.
>
> Any thoughts as to why this is occuring? The only solution is to revert
> to the previous situation and have my ISP's DNS server listed as the
> second entry on each client, and then I'll be back to dealing with the
> clients randomly going offline again.

Geeze, I hate to respond to my own post, but I think I figured it out and
wanted to pass along the info in case it helps anyone else.

The dns servers that I had listed in the forwarders IP address list included
my ISP's router's local IP address, as well as two specific external IP
addresses (one from my ISP and an alternate "free" DNS server that was
leftover from our Satellite days). I removed the two external IP addresses
and now all clients can connect without having to have a different secondary
DNS server specified locally. I guess the server was getting confused by
the external IP addresses, which makes perfect sense now.

Anyway, problem solved!

--
Hurricane Andrew