Can’t ping NETBIOS name of Server 2008 R2 domain

active-directorydomain-name-systemnetworkingwindows-server-2008windows-server-2008-r2

I've got some general slight network errors on a network. As part of testing I've discovered that I can't ping the netbios name of the site.

Ping mydomain

Returns:

Ping request could not find host mydomain. Please check the name and try again.

But if I ping the FQDN there is no problem.

Any idea why that would be?

I've checked DNS and that seems to be fine. We are not using WINS – but internet searching seems to indicate that is only needed when trying to ping a NETBIOS name across different subnets – we are not doing that.

BTW, pinging the NETBIOS names of individual machines – including the DCs works fine.

Best Answer

First of all: A domain is not listed in NETBIOS.

As Igal mentioned above, the reason that ping works against the FQDN is because of the round-robin A-records of domain controllers.

I'm guessing that your DNS suffix isnt correct on the client you're using ping from, as it fails to guess wich TLD "mydomain" is under. Please run ipconfig /all and double-check "DNS Suffix Search List".

EDIT: Actually, this only works if your AD domain is in 3 parts or more. I can get it working on one of domains who are named "lan.domain.com", but not a domain called "domain.local".

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