OBTAIN AN IP ADDRESS BY USING DHCPBEFORE YOU BEGIN THIS EXERCISE, YOU...

13-25Lesson 1 Configuring and Troubleshooting TCP/IP

Lesson Summary

■

Each TCP/IP host is identified by a logical IP address that identifies a computer’s

location on the network. The IP address is composed of a network ID and a host

ID. A subnet mask determines which portion of the IP address is the network ID

and which portion is the host ID.

■

A static IP address is a manually entered address. You should assign a static IP

address to selected network computers, such as the computer running the DHCP

Service.

■

Windows XP Professional can obtain an IP address automatically from a DHCP

server on the network. Using automatic addressing reduces the likelihood of

errors being introduced when configuring static addresses.

■

Windows XP Professional can assign itself an IP address using APIPA if a DHCP

server is not available. Computers enabled with APIPA can communicate only with

computers on the same subnet that also have addresses of the form 169.254.x.y.

■

Specifying an alternate TCP/IP configuration is useful when a computer is used on

multiple networks, one of which does not have a DHCP server and does not use

an automatic private IP addressing configuration.

■

Windows XP Professional includes a number of tools that you can use to trouble-

shoot TCP/IP configurations. These tools include the following:

❑

Ping

❑

Ipconfig

❑

Net View

❑

Tracert

❑

Pathping

Lesson 2: Understanding the Domain Name System

The Domain Name System (DNS) is used on the Internet and on many private net-

works. Private networks using Microsoft Active Directory directory service use DNS

extensively to resolve computer names and to locate computers within their local net-

works and the Internet. In fact, networks based on Windows 2000 Server and Windows

Server 2003 use DNS as a primary means of locating resources in Active Directory

(which you will learn about in Chapter 14, “Overview of Active Directory Service”).

After this lesson, you will be able to■ Explain how the domain namespace works.■ Identify domain-naming guidelines.■ Explain the purpose of zones.■ Explain the purpose of name servers.Estimated lesson time: 20 minutes

What Is the Domain Namespace?

The domain namespace is the naming scheme that provides the hierarchical structure

for the DNS database. Each node, referred to as a domain, represents a partition of the

DNS database.

The DNS database is indexed by name, so each domain must have a name. As you add

domains to the hierarchy, the name of the parent domain is added to its child domain

(called a subdomain). Consequently, a domain’s name identifies its position in the hier-

archy. For example, in Figure 13-8, the domain name sales.microsoft.com identifies the

sales domain as a subdomain of the microsoft.com domain and microsoft as a subdo-

main of the com domain.

The hierarchical structure of the domain namespace consists of a root domain, top-

level domains, second-level domains, and host names.

Note The term domain, in the context of DNS, does not correlate precisely to the term as used on the Active Directory network. A Windows domain is a grouping of computers and devices that are administered as a unit.