Monthly Archives: October 2016

ADDS, PowerShell, Security, Windows

Split-brain DNS Synchronizer

2 Comments

The latest version of the script available at GitHub.

Many companies use the same domain name for both internal and external servers hosting. When an internal domain name is a name of AD DS domain, and internal users must access some of the servers by their external IP-addresses, the problem arises: somehow all these external names must exist in the internal zone and the record information in these internal records must be in correspondence with the external ones. There are several possible solutions to resolve such situation:

1. Blindly forward all external requests to AD DS controllers. In this case, domain controllers are the primary name servers for the zone.

Pros:

  • Single point of management.
  • No new software on domain controllers required.

Cons:

  • You cannot point internal and external users to different hosts for the same DNS-record.
  • Requires to allow external users access to internal servers, which might be impossible due to security policies. Possible exposure of internal infrastructure to an external malicious user.
2. Have two separated set of DNS-servers for internal and external zones.

Pros:

  • You can point internal and external users to different hosts for the same DNS-record.
  • External users do not access internal servers.
  • No new software on domain controllers required.

Cons:

  • Two different points of management. DNS-records may become outdated.
3. Use DNS policies – the new Windows Server 2016 functionality.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/teamdhcp/2015/08/31/split-brain-dns-in-active-directory-environment-using-dns-policies/

Pros:

  • Single point of management.
  • You can point internal and external users to different hosts for the same DNS-record.

Cons:

  • Requires domain controllers migration to the latest software, which is not possible for some organizations.
  • Requires to allow external users access to internal servers, which might be impossible due to security policies. Possible exposure of internal infrastructure to an external malicious user.

 

Currently, I prefer the second method, with two sets of DNS servers. But in that case we have another challenge: How to ensure that all DNS-records, which must point to the same location for both external and internal users, are in sync?
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