ESX host registration to DNS

[skyroja]

Can ESX server automatically register to DNS, or it can be done only manually ?

Somewhere i found, that ESX and DNS are incompatible..

"ESX and Virtual Center are DNS incompetent; the architecture of VI 2 treats DNS as a second class service and demands the use of IP addresses." written by Brian Nelson on February 14, 2007 at 02:49 PM

but it was more than a year ago, maybe something is changed ?

[Spad]

I haven't had any real problems with VC 2.5 & DNS but I did have to register the hosts in DNS manually

[weinstein5]

You do have to manually connfigure DNS - I wonder if this guy knows what hes is talking about - it sounds like he is confusing AD with DNS -

His first point - One I do not know why you would use DHCP for an ESX server since it is an infrastructure server -His second point is wrong - you can use DNS to connect to your NAS/NFS device - I do it all the timer and his third point is also wrong VC's preferred connection is by DNS/FQDN since this will be needed if ou use VMware HA -

[espi3030]

I have not found a way to get ESX to register in DNS automatically like Windows does. You have to manually create the DNS entires.

P.S. - Welcome to the forums, you will find an abundance of knowledge here!

[Draconis]

David is probably right. That guy probably didnt see his ESX server in the Users and Computers Snap-in in AD. That doesnt mean DNS doesnt have the ESX host record. If you ensure you are pointed to the correct DNS servers when you provide the static IP address, you should be fine.

As a sidenote, I know that VI3 only supports VC installations on Windows OSes and to use add-ons like VMWare's Guided consolidation, you would have to be part of the domain so you can enumerate resources on the network properly. When you join the domain, DNS is updated. AD relies highly on DNS. If for some reason it doesnt register with the DNS server you have, doublecheck what DNS servers the VC is actually using. If that still isnt the issue, use the ipconfig /registerdns command.

[Draconis]

What is your DNS infrastructure?

[skyroja]

No, I'm not confusing AD with DNS. I added ESX host to AD (there's a link howto).

Now the host resolves other host's through host names, but it can't be resolved by name (ping goes by IP address, but not by hostname).

So, now i know that host can be manually registered to DNS. The problem is - how to automate this process. ?

[skyroja]

Draconis, You talking about Vmware on Windows. I'm asking about ESX 3.5 (non Windows version, i guess it is running on redhat).

The host is seen in AD.

[Rumple]

ESX will not show up in Active directory unless someone joined the service console to the domain (possibly for AD authentication to the console for when VC is not used).

In Secure mode, ESX cannot register itself in DNS unless it has been joined to the domain.

In normal implementations with VC, you never need to join the Service Console to the domain as VC is used to control access using AD credentials automatically). In this implementation, you need to manually register the DNS records. If DNS is setup in insecure mode (although its not recommended to be in that setting), then ESX can update the records once they are created.