DNS on Windows 2000

By Matt Larson, Cricket Liu

"Don't stand chattering to yourself like that," Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her for the first time, "but tell me your name and your business."

"My name is Alice, but?

"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?"

"Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.

"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh ....

To be proficient at troubleshooting name server problems, you'll need a special tool to make DNS queries, one that gives you complete control. We'll cover nslookup in this chapter because it's distributed with Windows 2000 and with many other operating systems.

Note that this chapter isn't comprehensive; there are aspects of nslookup -- mostly obscure and seldom usedthat we won't cover. You can always consult the manual pages for information on those aspects.