Integrating DNS with WINS

This section will review:

• How Integration Works. This section explains why it's a good idea to make WINS and DNS cooperate. Multiple-platform networks can benefit by providing several kinds of name resolution to various clients with different client configurations.

• Enabling WINS Lookups. This section shows how to establish WINS lookups through a DNS server.

• Testing WINS Lookups. This section shows how to be sure that WINS lookups through DNS are working properly.

• Reverse Lookups with WINS. This section shows how to establish reverse lookups through DNS for clients that register to a WINS server.

• Multihomed Servers. WINS typically does a good job of handling multihomed computers. This section shows how to provide multihomed resolutions through DNS for WINS-registered computers.

Mixed networking environments are today's norm. A multiple-platform network can have a UNIX-based server to handle DNS requests and a Windows NT-based server to handle WINS requests, but this means you'd spend a lot of time administering two separate name resolution methods. Windows NT 4.0 cuts this administrative overhead by integrating both name resolution methods.

DNS and WINS both participate in resolving host names and computer (NetBIOS) names to IP addresses in a typical Windows environment. They help you resolve names so you can connect to remote computers across the LAN and across the Internet. WINS resolves computer names that are flat names, such as \\EARTH, and DNS resolves FQDNs, such as earth.paradise.com.