Posted on by Admin Reports8 Comments on Adding A, IP, MX Records to a Windows DNS zone

If you have to first set up your DNS server on Windows check out Setting Up Windows Server 2003 DNS Server. If you already have your Windows DNS server setup and just want to add a few records this tutorial will explain how to add those DNS records.

First thing you need to do is open Windows DNS Manager if it already isn’t open.

Start > Administrative Tools > DNS

In the left window of the DNS manager expand the forward zones folder and right click the zone you want add records to.

Select Properties. Now the first thing we want to do configure the Start of Authority(SOA). When you setup the zone it set defaults that are not rfc compliant. Lets get that done first.

The first section is the serial number. You should set each section as follows:

  • Serial number should be in yyyymmdd01 format. Set the year, then month, then day and finally an 2 digit number that will increment every update. Start with 01
  • Primary server should be ns.yourmain.tld or whatever you called the name server. Default was the domain name. You can use the default if the root domain is actually registered as a name server for you domain
  • Responsible party would be the DNS admin email, Normally hostmaster.yourdomain.tld.
  • Refresh interval set to 20 minutes.
  • Retry interval set to 15 minutes.
  • Expires after set to 14 days.
  • Minimum time to live(TTL) set to 1 hour.
  • TTL for this record should be default so you shouldn’t have to change it. It should be 0 :1 :0 :0.

Those are minimum values and can be changed if you feel the need. With those values if you use a site like DNS Reports you won’t get any errors.

Lets add some other records now.

Adding A, IP, MX Records to a Windows DNS zone
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8 thoughts on “Adding A, IP, MX Records to a Windows DNS zone”

  1. I did all of this…. Then I went to godaddy to change the nameservers that my domain points to and when I typed in NS.example.com and NS2.example.com an error message said “Nameserver not registered” under both nameserver boxes.

    What does this mean? Do I need to wait a few hours before changing the nameservers in godaddy? Or is something else wrong?

  2. I think I figured it out. In the godaddy control panel I “registered” my name servers and set what ip address the name servers should point to. Then I went back to change the nameservers for my domain and it worked, it didnt say ‘nameserve not registered’ anymore.

    Now I just gotta wait a few hours for it to propogate and see if it works.

    Thanks for the article btw

  3. Hello, I’m also having problem with this type of issue. Can you give me an instructions in how you configured your webserver. In my case, I also build my webserver (i.e. server1 and server2) server2 where i setup my webserver and I was able to access my website via local access. Now I wanted to access my website via publicly internet and I don’t know how to configure that part. I did signed-up for domain at godaddy.com as well.

  5. BSchwarz, Thank you for your response. I’ve already done all the steps from the link you provided and went to my godaddy.com account and registered my ISP IPAddress however, still not working via public internet. It works fine locally but accessing my site outside my network still doesn’t work.

    These are the steps in how I setup my servers.
    1. I have 2wire router as my ISP DSL with my ISP IPAddress
    2. I am using a HUB for my Server1 and Server2. My HUB is connected to my 2Wire Router and configured FORWARDER, so I can access internet on both servers.
    3. My DNS on Server1 is configured: abc.com+server2+hostA+192.168.1.211 this ipaddress is the ipaddress I assigned to my server2 connected to the HUB. www+Alias(CNAME)+server2.abc.com
    4. My IIS Web Site settings: Description:abc.com, IPAdress:192.168.1.211, TCP Port:80, Headers Value:www.abc.com

    The settings above works locally however, when I change the ipaddress on step4 with my ISP IPAddress which is I registered to GoDaddy.com, the abc.com won’t work both local & public.

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