How to Synchronize DNS Records

Test network bandwidth availability if DNS secondary zones fail to synchronize.

Force zone synchronization if you discover that a master zone version number is higher than a secondary zone version number. DNS secondary zones are supposed to synchronize with the DNS master zone every 15 minutes. However, network connectivity issues, such as congestion or high resource utilization on the server managing the master zone, may cause synchronization to fail. Run the Dnscmd command line utility to manually force synchronization.

Things You'll Need

• Windows Server 2008 computer with DNS service enabled
• Administrator account credentials on the Windows Server 2008 computer
• Windows Server 2008 computer hostname
• Secondary zone requiring synchronization

Instructions

1. Log in to the Windows Server 2008 computer using Administrator account credentials.

2. Click the Windows “Start” button and click the command line icon. The black command line window displays.

3. Type “dnscmd dns.server.hostname /ZoneRefresh zonename” at the command prompt. Replace “dns.server.hostname” with the hostname of the DNS server requiring synchronization. Replace “zonename” with the name of a secondary zone that needs synchronization.

4. Press the “Enter” key to start the synchronization process.

References

• Computing Tech; Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 R2 DNS; July 7, 2011
• Microsoft TechNet: Dnscmd