DNS: 2 Sites and 2 domains

[eean]

Hi,
Right, this is very complicated to explain. Please bear with me!

Background:
We are a split-site school. Currently there are 2 domains: upper school and lower school (one for each site). We going to migrate to one domain - phasing out the lower school domain.
The upper school has been upgraded to Server 2008. The lower school has a new 2008 domain controller which is set up with 'Sites' to replicate to the upper school.
The 'old' (currently in use) domain at the lower school is 2003.

Question 1 - how should DNS be set up on the lower school DC?
Currently, the contractor has set up a DNS server on the new lower school DC - OK. But, on the IP address setup on the server network card has configured the Primary DNS controller to be at the upper school, then the Secondary DNS controller to be at the lower school.
Surely, on a DC with DNS you should have it pointing to itself?

Is there a special way which the DNS forwarders/replication should be set?

Question 2
On the lower site: We would like to setup and test Windows Deployment Services (WDS) on the new domain whilst leaving the old domain in place. WDS requires DHCP and DNS however, these are still hosted on the old domain. We also want to join and use computers on the new domain.

Can we continue to use the DHCP and DNS servers on the old domain? Will this complicate WDS?(Eventually, we'll move it over). Do we need to set up DNS fowarders or something to the upper school site?

Thanks!

[oxide54]

Question 1 - how should DNS be set up on the lower school DC?
Currently, the contractor has set up a DNS server on the new lower school DC - OK. But, on the IP address setup on the server network card has configured the Primary DNS controller to be at the upper school, then the Secondary DNS controller to be at the lower school.
Surely, on a DC with DNS you should have it pointing to itself?

DNS Client on a DC should point to itself, forwarder should be ISP or upstream DNS server, in your case ISP if the two Domains are in the same forest and the replication is setup properly they should replicate between each other. There are replication settings in the DNS mmc snapin, under properties for the DNS domain.

Question 2
On the lower site: We would like to setup and test Windows Deployment Services (WDS) on the new domain whilst leaving the old domain in place. WDS requires DHCP and DNS however, these are still hosted on the old domain. We also want to join and use computers on the new domain.

I would move your DHCP service to the new domain, as you will be phasing out the old domain, and run the WDS on the DHCP server as this will simplify installation configuration. We have two DC's (in the same domain both running DNS,DHCP,AD,WDS)

Or block DHCP relay on the router(s) between the sites and set it up on each site, depending on your link speed. Getting an IP address may be ok, but actually booting windows PE and deploying an image over it may prove to be too slow.