How to fix the Windows DNS Error:

*** Can't find server name for address SOMEIP: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown

This error is caused because windows does a reverse dns lookup on its dns-server. If the dns server doesn't have a complete reverse dns lookup table, then this error occurs.

To solve this problem with bind, do the following:

  1. open /etc/bind/named.conf in a text editor. There must be a zone file for the local domain, and there must be a zone file for all of the subnets under that domain. In this example, the domain is AcumenConsultingInc.Net, and there are two class C domains, 192.168.3.0/24 and 192.168.200/24. I choose to set up the reverse table as a class B 192.168.0.0/16 table, as opposed to two seperate tables for class C networks:

    zone "acumensoftwareinc.com" {
    type master;
    file "pri/acumenconsulting.zone";
    };

    zone "168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
    type master;
    notify no;
    file "pri/192-168.zone";
    };

  2. Here is a copy of the entire named.conf file.
  3. cd to the directory specfied in named.conf, in this case, cd /var/bind/pri
  4. open the two files previously specfied. In this case 192-168.zone and acumenconsulting.zone
  5. the dns server must have a name in both files. In this case it is chocolate.acumensoftwareinc.com. Here is the entry in acumenconsulting.zone:
    chocolate.acumensoftwareinc.com. IN A 192.168.3.1
    1.3.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR chocolate.acumensoftwareinc.com.
    Here is the entry in 192.168.zone:
    1.3 PTR chocolate.acumen.dyndns.biz.
  6. here are the two files acumenconsulting.zone and 192-168.zone.
  7. relaod the zone information, after you have edited / created the files with, "rndc reload"
  8. from a windows machine, open a dos box and type 'nslookup google.com', and it should now work.