Derek's Musings » DNS alias http://www.incandetech.com/derek I'm right. You're wrong. Don't take it personally. It's just how things are. Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:23:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Using a DNS alias (CNAME) to access file shares on a Windows host http://www.incandetech.com/derek/2009/07/29/using-a-dns-alias-cname-to-access-file-shares-on-a-windows-host/ http://www.incandetech.com/derek/2009/07/29/using-a-dns-alias-cname-to-access-file-shares-on-a-windows-host/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:06:03 +0000 Derek http://www.incandetech.com/derek/2009/07/29/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 on 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.

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