# Windows Server 2008 DNS Forwarders



## verdrm

I just configured a Windows 2008 server with Active Directory, and setup DNS as well.

The problem is that when I browse the internet, most pages load very slowly unless I add my gateway's IP as a DNS server in IP Properties. I tried adding the gateway's IP as a Forwarder in DNS settings tab but it cannot find the FQDN of the FiOS router. The gateway for my network is a Verizon FiOS router.

I know that the FiOS's router's IP should not be listed in the NIC's IP properties page; only the server's IP should be listed for DNS.

What am I doing wrong?


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## djaburg

Normally you set your ISP DNS server addresses in your forwards. So for example in my network I use my server IP as the DNS server address on the servers NIC. I then configure the DNS forwards in my DNS config to be the DNS addresses for my ISP, 68.105.28.12 and 13. This makes it so the server tries to resolve first and if not it goes out to the ISP DNS to use them. Makes things smooth.


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## verdrm

Here is what I am doing:

In Windows 2008 DNS console:

1) Right click name of DNS server and click "Properties"

2) Click "Forwarders" tab

3) My server is in the list

4) Type in "208.67.220.220", the IP for OpenDNS. It resolves to "resolver2.opendns.com"

5) Click OK

No matter what I put in, regardless of whether it resolves or not, it gives me this error: The server forwarders cannot be updated. The IP Address is invalid.

My domain is ad.mysite.local


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## djaburg

Normally you would open the DNS console, right click on the server, properties, forwarders and you should see a list of IP addresses for the domain forwarders. Yours should NOT be in that list, only your ISP's DNS servers or OpenDNS's IP address(es). You don't want to forward to the request to your own server as the only reason it goes to the forward is when it can resolve it by itself. Is your server showing up in the DNS Domain field? Normally that's populated with something like "all other DNS domains".


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## verdrm

I actually just figured that out, but you are right, my server should not be listed as a forwarder. 

For whatever reason it was there when DNS was installed.


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## djaburg

Did that help, or are you still having the same issue?


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