Using a DNS alias (CNAME) to access file shares on a Windows host

Most of the time it’s a good idea to assign each service its own DNS alias (CNAME) which points to the host the service is currently running on. This way if the service should need to be moved to another server, the DNS alias can simply be pointed to the new host. I might, for instance, map my clients to \\print01, even though the actual server is named zeus. Zeus might one day decide to take an extended nap and not boot, but I can easily install the printers onĀ apollo, quickly change the DNS–and not have to change all 42 clients. Needless to say very beneficial.

Unfortunately for us Windows administrators the Server service (LanmanServer) that exposes all those wonderful file shares to the network doesn’t like DNS aliases much–by default.

Why this is–I have no idea for sure. One would guess there’s a security reason behind it, but I’d only be speculating.

Luckily there’s a documented workaround.

Simply change the following and then reboot:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters|DisableStrictNameChecking(DWORD):1

Once that change has been made you’ll be able to access those shares via the host name along with the alias now as well.

One thought on “Using a DNS alias (CNAME) to access file shares on a Windows host

  1. How Ya Doin was just surfing through the social bookmark sites looking for some new reading posts when i located this post on an other blog. I had to write you a post to show you that I genuinely appreciated this blog post. I just cannot find very much quality any more on the world-wide-web anymore with all the trash these days so whenever I do find a fantastic posting I value it. Keep up the excellent job and I am confident this blog is going to go a long ways and grow to be quite well-liked

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>