DNS on Windows Server 2003, 3rd Edition

Updating Zone Data

For nearly all changes to your zones, you’ll use the DNS console. In Chapter 4 we described how to add a name server to the DNS console, create zones, and create resource records. Deleting these objects is easy: just select the object by left-clicking it, then press Delete (or select Action → Delete). Modifying objects is also straightforward. Name server names and zone names cannot be changed but must be deleted and added with the new name. For example, if the name of a name server you’re managing changes, you have to delete the name server within the DNS console and replace it with the new name. The same thing goes if you change the name of a zone, say from movie.edu to movie.net.

Changing resource record data is easy, too. Just double-click the record in the right pane (or select it with a single click and choose Action → Properties). You’ll see the same window as when you added the record. Note that you can change resource record data (also called RDATA) but not the name of the record (the owner). In other words, you can change the right side of the record but not the left side (as viewed in the DNS console’s righthand pane or in the zone datafile). So you can change the IP address of terminator’s A record, but you can’t change terminator to terminator2. If you need to change the owner, you’ll have to delete the record and replace it with the new owner.