Server 2003 Clients Need Full Server Name to access Shares

[genistas]

Hi,
I've got a small Server 2003 domain with about 5 clients. I was previously able to browse to the shared folder by typing in \\servername\sharename .

However, since I've added the VPN role, none of the clients can access the folder that way anymore. It now requires the full server name with domain, or \\servername.domain.local\sharename .

Does anyone have any idea how this got changed and how I can change it back? Thanks in advance!

-dan

 

[office politics]

i usually set append this suffix to the connection

How to configure TCP/IP to use DNS in Windows XP

How to modify the resolution behavior for unqualified DNS names
To modify the resolution behavior for unqualified DNS names, follow these steps:
To resolve an unqualified name by appending the primary DNS suffix and the DNS suffix of each connection, click Append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes. To do this, each connection must be configured. If you also want to search the parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix up to the second-level domain, click to select the Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix check box.

To resolve an unqualified name by appending the suffixes from a list of configured suffixes, click Append these DNS suffixes (in order), and then click Add to add suffixes to the list.

To configure a connection-specific DNS suffix, type the DNS suffix in the DNS suffix for this connection box.

 

[genistas]

My (limited) understanding is that this would have to be done on every workstation. As we start adding VPN clients and more users this may become a problem.

Could it be that I have DNS incorrectly configured on the server?

 

[office politics]

is the issue that the clients connected to the vpn cannot access via \\servername? or all clients including clients joined to the same domain?

if the issue includes clients joined to the same domain, then i'd agree that dns may have incorrect configuration.


if it's just the clients connected to the vpn, then I'd guess that these clients are not joined to the domain. If they were joined to the domain, it would fix the issue. however, the issue could also be fixed by changing the dns suffix configuration when setting up the vpn connection.

 

[genistas]

The issue occurs on all clients, both local clients that are joined to the domain and VPN clients that have not yet been joined to the domain.

I'm going to play around with DNS on the server a little bit. I really know next to nothing about configuring DNS, but I've got a pretty simple setup. Any ideas on how I could fix this?

Thanks again for your help

 

[Osiris]

Possibly missing the DNS suffixes. Setup DNS suffixes or install the WINS server on the VPN server.