Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Weird Event Log Event

This box has a dying systemboard and one of the error messages I saw in the Event Log I have never seen before...

Error Source: i8042prt
Type: Information
EventID: 12

Description: The ring buffer that stores incoming mouse data has overflowed (buffer size is configurable via the PS/2 mouse properties in device manager).

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Bulk DNS Update via CSV File

So here is the scenario:

All of my DNS static entries are going to get nuked and changed to a completely different IP space (yes, the computers too). However since this is such a massive task and we have minimal time to make the change we would like to complete as much ahead of time as we can. All of my DNS servers are DCs running AD-Integrated Zones. The only way I can think of to do this ahead of time is by creating a spreadsheet and filling in the hostnames and the new IPs and then on the day of the IP change import the new records into DNS. So, the question is how exactly can I update the DNS tables on an AD Integrated Zone using a script or file import?

Here is what I found:
The simple answer is you can't :) However there is a workaround...
1. Export your DNS information to a CSV File
2. Modify the DNS information to show the correct IP information. I acomplished this by using Excel Spreadsheets sent to users to be filled in with the new IPs. Then using SQL I imported the Spreadsheets into a database and then scripted a massive UPDATE statement on the master DNS list. Then exported the updated master DNS list as a TAB DELIMITED file.
3. Next I needed to remove all my DNS Servers except one. Pick one to keep, uninstall DNS on all others.
4. On the remaining DNS Server I changed all my zones from Active-Directory Integrated Zones to Primary using the following: (right click on each zone) > Properties > General > Change Type > (Uncheck) "Store the zone in Active Directory"
5. Repeat for all zones
6. Keep the "Load Zone Data on Startup" at "From Active Directory and registry"
7. Open the DNS zone files (.dns) located in c:\windows\system32\dns\
8. Modify the DNS zone file with your new information keeping the proper TAB Delimited format.
9. Reboot the DNS server, this is gonna take a while but if you don't you are going to get an error like "the specified directory partition does not exist".
10. Open DNS Manager again and move all of your zones back to AD-Integrated Zones. Steps are the reverse of Step 4.
11. Reinstall DNS on all the other DNS Servers that we uninstalled on Step 3.
12. Once DNS is installed on all the other DNS Servers check to make sure that they have the latest DNS entries. They should and at this point you are done.

Piece of cake :)