How to manage internal DNS without running a domain controller
Retaining traditional domain controllers solely for local network name resolution creates unnecessary complexity and overhead for on-prem environments. This leaves administrators struggling to manually sync records across multiple sites when hardware or legacy servers are phased out.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Running BIND9 on a Linux virtual machine
- 2Running DNS directly on network routers or firewalls
- 3Using lightweight alternatives like Unbound or Dnsmasq
- 4Manually modifying the hosts file on every client
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“we still have a need for internal DNS because we have a lot of on-prem stuff that may never go away, and the domain controllers were also serving as internal DNS servers.”source ↗
“The part that sucks usually, is if you have more than one site, it can be a pain to remember to update DNS for each site.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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