Providing DNS ZoneInfo

[SimpleSi]

My wife (Burase at a primary) got this email from OneCOnnect

 

Thank you for talking with me this morning, as discussed, the migration to Office 365 requires the alteration of all DNS within the Lancashire schools system in order maintain the connectivity to each server. All DNS within BTLS sphere of control have been already amended.

We are now requesting all schools with their own Domain servers to provide DNS zones files to BTLS, I appreciate you may need to acquire this information from your service provider, but if you could request this today from them,

hopefully they could get the files back to you to send to us on Tuesday.

 

Why?

What?

How?

???

 

Now I know that I'm a bit dim but

Do they want the schools internal server - can't see why since basically it just makes lookup requests to their DNS servers and caches the results

 

or

is it because the school website is hosted externally and I need info from the hosting company?

 

Confused of Lancs

[3s-gtech]

I suspect they need Zone Transfers from each school to the OneConnect DNS servers, so that lookups work properly both ways. We do this to make our Mac server configure iPads properly (they have to connect externally and internally) and I suspect the same is needed with Office 365.

[plexer]

Nope still don't get why it would be necessary at all doing a zone transfer once is pointless.

 

Ben

[SimpleSi]

I hate DNS zone stuff - it always seems gobblygook to me

 

I'll have to have a play 1st with wit hmy old w2k3 servers to see if I can work out what to do ebfore tyring to tackle my wife's school 2012Server!

 

Simon

[JRowley]

Just ask for clarification on it, the wording is extremely vague.

[3s-gtech]

Nope still don't get why it would be necessary at all doing a zone transfer once is pointless.

 

Ben

 

Agreed - it would need to be synced rather than just sent once.

[SimpleSi]

Well I talked to OneConnect and they say its because the school website is hosted externally and that they need the DNS zone information from them, then they will add some extra information to this and then they will send it back to the schools website hoster.

 

Does this make sense to anyone.

 

Will the website hoster know what's needed to be done?

 

Has anyone in Lancs done this exercise as part of the 365 migration?

 

Simon

[plexer]

I'm still confused as to what they actually want but it's going to be dns info from the external webhost not from the schools internal dns server.

 

Ben

[kmount]

Sounds like they're going for the blanket approach of "send us all of your zone files and we'll figure out from that what records in there point to legacy/old services that need amending or creating to support the Office 365 setup"

 

I can half understand it if they're trying to check all angles but it's worded very badly indeed.

[JRowley]

It couldn't be in order to add SPF records and modify the MX could it? If the website's domain is also the same as the email's then you would ideally need to add an SPF record, and point the MX records to office 365.

 

Again this entirely depends on how your system worked in the first place.

[LukeC]

They need to verify they own the domain with Microsoft, so they have to create an TXT record that Microsoft states so when they check they can actually see they are in control of the domain. Edited October 10, 2014 by LukeC

[JRowley]

They need to verify they own the domain with Microsoft, so they have to create an TXT record that Microsoft states so when they check they can actually see they are in control of the domain.

 

Well yeah but that doesn't require sending anything, the school can just be asked to add that if that's what they want. Though the same is true of SPF and MX records, I really have no explanation for why you are being asked to send them anything @SimpleSi.

[SimpleSi]

They need to verify they own the domain with Microsoft, so they have to create an TXT record that Microsoft states so when they check they can actually see they are in control of the domain.

 

No thats something I can get my head around as it makes sense - Google wanted me to do the same thing for a school to get Google Apps when I tried a few years ago.

 

In the meantime, the school head decided to switch web-site hosting to another company so we are having to wait till the dust settles and the domain gets transferred to the new hoster

 

Simon

[buzzard]

All they need to do is setup the required DNS entries for 365 to work, if I was in your shoes, I'd ask them for the changes they require and pass them onto your DNS host and request they make the changes... OCL/BTLSL are dangerous!