Lesson 2

Monitoring Network Servers

6-21

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Internet e-mail directed to your domain bounces.

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Active Directory directory service clients cannot locate a domain controller and

therefore cannot log on.

Because your DNS servers might be accessible from the Internet, they are also more

susceptible than internal services such as DHCP to attacks that can prevent them from

functioning. It is therefore important that you monitor your DNS servers regularly.

DNS Logging Unlike most of the network services in Windows Server 2003, DNS has

its own log in the Event Viewer console (see Figure 6-10). This log can contain infor-

mational entries about the service’s activities, as well as errors and warnings concern-

ing dangerous conditions.

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Figure 6-10

The DNS Server log in the Event Viewer console

Tip

You can specify what information the DNS service saves to the Event Log by displaying

the DNS server icon’s Properties dialog box in the DNS console, clicking the Event Logging

tab, and selecting from the following options: No Events, Errors Only, Errors And Warnings, or

All Events.

In addition to the Event Viewer log, the Windows Server 2003 DNS Server service has

debug logging capabilities, which you configure in the Debug Logging tab in the DNS

server icon’s Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-11. In this dialog box, you can

specify the types of messages and the amount of detail you want to log. You can also

create filters to log only the messages to or from specific IP addresses.