DHCP for Windows 2000

Chapter 10. Integrating DHCP and DNS

Before Windows 2000, networks using Microsoft operating systems relied on NetBIOS for network clients to locate servers and resources. One problem with NetBIOS is that it doesn’t work with TCP/IP, and hence, the Internet. The Internet and TCP/IP rely on the use of either host files or DNS for name resolution. Microsoft operating systems did not support these systems for name resolution. With Microsoft starting late in the Internet game, WINS was developed to provide NetBIOS name to IP address name resolution.

In Windows 2000, the Domain Name System (DNS) has replaced the Windows Internet Naming System (WINS) as the primary method of name registration and resolution. As such, DNS needed to include much of the functionality in WINS. This chapter provides an overview of some of these new features before delving into the piece of DNS that is tightly integrated with DHCP: Dynamic Update. One of the benefits of using WINS was that WINS clients could automatically and dynamically register their NetBIOS names in the WINS database. Dynamic Update adds this support to DNS using hostnames, the DNS database, and DHCP.

Domain Name System

During the early days of the Internet, the hostnames of computers were stored in a HOSTS file, a static text file listing hostnames and their corresponding IP addresses. Since it was a static text file, it needed to be administered by hand. Typically, the HOSTS file was stored in a central location, which in turn was ...