DNS Interview Questions And Answers:

1.What is DNS? Domain Naming Services or System: - used for resolving host names to IPs and IPs to Host Names.

2.What is NBNS? NetBIOS Naming System, ex. - WINS, 2k access resources using DNS naming Conventions

3.What is a Forward Lookup? Resolving Host Names to IP Addresses

4.What is Reverse Lookup? Its a file contains host names to IP mapping information.

5.What is a Resource Record? It is a record provides the information about the resources available in the N/W infrastructure.

6.What are the diff. DNS Roles? Standard Primary, Standard Secondary, & AD Integrated.

7.What is a Zone?

Zone is a sub tree of DNS database.

8.What is primary, Secondary, stub & AD Integrated Zone? Primary Zone: - zone which is saved as normal text file with filename (.dns) in DBS folder. Maintains a read, write copy of zone database Secondary Zone: - maintains a read only copy of zone database on another DNS server. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing by acting as backup server to primary server. Stub zone: - contains a copy of name server and SOA records used for reducing the DNS search orders. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.

9.What does a zone consist of & why do we require a zone? Zone consists of resource records and we require zone for representing sites.

10.What is Caching Only Server? When we install 2000 & 2003 server it is configured as caching only server where it maintains the frequently accessed sites information and again when we access the same site for next time it is obtain from cached information instead of going to the actual site.

11.What is forwarder? When one DNS server cant receive the query it can be forwarded to another DNS once configured as forwarder.

12.What is secondary DNS Server?

It is backup for primary DNS where it maintains a read only copy of DNS database.

13.How to enable Dynamic updates in DNS? Start>Program>Admin tools> DNS >Zone properties.

14.What are the properties of DNS server? INTERFACES, FORWARDERS, ADVANCED, ROUTINGS, SECURITY, MONITORING, LOGGING, DEBUG LOGGING.

15.Properties of a Zone? General, SOA, NAMESERVER, WINS, Security, and ZONE Transfer.

16.What is scavenging? Finding and deleting unwanted records.

17.What are SRV records? SRV are the service records, there are 6 service records. They are useful for locating the services.

18.What are the types of SRV records? MSDCS:Contains DCs information TCP:Contains Global Catalog, Kerberos & LDAP information. UDP:Contains Sites information

Sites:Contains Sites information Domain DNS Zone:Conations domains DNS specific information Forest DNS zone:Contains Forests Specific Information.

19.Where does a Host File Reside? c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc.

20.What is SOA? Start of Authority: useful when a zone starts. Provides the zone startup information

21.What is a query? A request made by the DNS client to provide the name server information.

22.What are the diff. types of Queries? Recursion, iteration

23.Tools for troubleshooting DNS? DNS Console, NSLOOKUP, DNSCMD, IPCONFIG, Logs, PM.

24.Difference between BOOTP and DHCP. In computer networking, the Bootstrap Protocol, or BOOTP, is a network protocol used by a network client to obtain an IP address from a configuration server. BOOTP is usually used during the bootstrap process when a computer is starting up. A BOOTP configuration server assigns an IP

address to each client from a pool of addresses. BOOTP uses the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as a transport on IPv4 networks only. Historically, BOOTP has also been used for Unix-like diskless workstations to obtain the network location of their boot image in addition to an IP address. The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a set of rules used by communications devices such as a computer, router or network adapter to allow the device to request and obtain an IP address from a server which has a list of addresses available for assignment. 25.How DHCP works ? When a DHCP-configured client (a computer or any other network-aware device) connects to a network, the DHCP client sends a broadcast query requesting necessary information from a DHCP server. The DHCP server manages a pool of IP addresses and information about client configuration parameters such as default gateway, domain name, the name servers, other servers such as time servers, and so forth. On receiving a valid request, the server assigns the computer an IP address, a lease (length of time the allocation is valid), and other IP configuration parameters, such as the subnet mask and the default gateway. The query is typically initiated immediately after booting, and must complete before the client can initiate IP-based communication with other hosts. 26.How many ways DHCP allocate IP address ? 3 ways: Dynamic: A network administrator assigns a range of IP addresses to DHCP, and each client
computer on the LAN is configured to request an IP address from the DHCP server during network initialization. The request-and-grant process uses a lease concept with a controllable time period, allowing the DHCP server to reclaim (and then reallocate) IP addresses that are not renewed.

Automatic: The DHCP server permanently assigns a free IP address to a requesting client from the
range defined by the administrator.Here DHCP server keeps a table of past IP address assignments, so that it can preferentially assign to a client the same IP address that the client previously had.

Static: The DHCP server allocates an IP address based on a table with MAC address/IP address pairs,
which are manually filled in and Only requesting clients with a MAC address listed in this table will be allocated an IP address.

27. which port number you use when installing DHCP ?

DHCP uses the same UDP ports, 67 and 68, as BOOTP. 67 for server 68 for clint default port is 67. 26.