Summary

This Knowledgebase article provides information for troubleshooting the Neverfail DNSUpdate.exe utility events. 

More Information

If problems are encountered when running DNSUpdate.exe tool, the following options can be used to assist in troubleshooting:

Usage

DNSUpdate [-h] [-v] [-d] [-ci] [[-selftest] | [[-cc appName Domain Destination] -r ipaddress -a ipaddress [-ns ipaddress]-p ipaddress -s ipaddress [-name compname] [-domain domain]]

If no parameters are passed, a self-test will run.

General Parameters

Return Codes

Troubleshooting

1. Attempt to run the tool in self test mode. Self test mode verifies that the ping and dnscmd system tools are compatible and that Heartbeat has been installed on the machine.
   This is very important because if either of these tools are incompatible then it will not update the DNS servers.
   To run DNSUpdate.exe in the self test mode (without parameters), from a command prompt type: <neverfailinstalldirectory>\R2\bin\dnsupdate.exe DNSUpdate should return the following: :Success This is returned if there were no errors that caused DNSUpdate to be unable to complete its calls of DNSCMD. If any DNSCMD calls fail or if there are no contactable Name Servers, the Success return code is returned. This is intentional to allow the known situations where the DNS topology is inconsistent and/or flawed.
2. Attempt to run the tool in trace mode to check that it is accessing the correct AD and DNS servers.
   Trace mode outputs a trace to the console (stdout) identifying what DNS Servers and zones have been identified and if the updates have been successful. When using this method, the best results can be gathered by using the same IP address in -s and -p
   
   

   NOTE:

   It is normal to see destroyNameServers and destroying Zone in the trace — this is simply the program tidying up its temporary storage.

   
   To run DNSUpdate in trace mode, from a command prompt type: <neverfailinstalldirectory>\R2\bin\dnsupdate.exe -p <Primary IP address> -s <Secondary IP address> -d
   

   NOTE:

   DNSUpdate gives feedback after 8 minutes. If the "trust relationship" between the server and the primary domain fails, DNSUpdate will appear to take a long time to resolve. This is normal behavior.

3. Error Code 128 and Error Code 999
   These errors normally point to a problem executing the DoExecuteAsUser command as setup in the script. This does not relate directly to DNSUpdate itself but may mean the DNSUpdate command was not able to run successfully. This could indicate one or more issues running a command under a certain user account or another general authentication issue. For example the user account with which DNSUpdate is invoked within the start.bat file must be added into the Administrators group on both Primary and Secondary machines. Additionally, the server needs to be active when the change is performed, otherwise non-local users cannot be added into the Administrators group. For further information, please contact your Neverfail Support representative.

In some environments where two or more DNS servers need to be updated, the task buffer might get full and display an exit code "-1073741819". As a workaround, you will have to create one task per each DNS server. So from Advanced Management Client -> Applications -> Tasks you will have to create new DNSupdate network tasks by clicking the Add button. You will need to have one per each DNS server that needs to be updated and also one per each server in the cluster. You can configure them with the same username as the old ones and as for the command you will have to use the –ns parameter followed by one DNS server, as in the example below:

DNSUpdate –ns 192.168.1.254

Applies To

All Versions 

Related Information

Knowledgebase Article #389 — How to Use the Neverfail Heartbeat Utility DNSUpdate.exe (DNS)

KBID-1441