Windows – nslookup cannot resolve hostname for machine on external domain from internal domain

domaindomain-name-systemhostnamenslookupwindows

Keep in mind, this issue is exclusively for Windows platforms.

For a particular company, they have an internal and external domain. One is behind the firewall, and one is in front. I am sitting on the internal domain. I can ping a machine on the internal domain and a machine on the external domain.

On the internal domain, if I perform an nslookup on an internal domain's machine hostname or IP, it resolves the hostname. On the internal domain, if i perform an nslookup on an external domain's machine hostname only, it resolves the hostname; however, it does not resolve the hostname with the IP address.

From the internal domain, I RDP into a machine on the external domain, run nslookup from within this machine and I can resolve any internal or external machine's hostname, either by IP or hostname.

I'm not exactly sure what is going on. Obviously, something is being blocked. My question is what are my options around this? I wanted to run a script which returns hostnames for machines on both domains, but it seems I'll have to have the script live in both domains.

Thank you.

Best Answer

Have you checked the Advanced TCP/IP settings on your client?

Open up properties for the interface, find TCP/IP on list, go to properties, and then check out the DNS tab - near the bottom should be a list of domains to append.

Make sure all domain names that you are searching for are in that list, if not, add them.