Dns – NSLOOKUP Default Server: UnKnown How to fix it

dnsdomainnslookupping

I execute NSLOOKUP and see

C:>NSLOOKUP

Default Server: UnKnown

Address: 192.168.1.1

I am guessing that it should be something like

C:> nslookup

Default Server: nameserver1.domain.com

Address: 192.168.1.1

How to fix it?

Could it be the reason why I cannot ping the Domain Controller by its full name?

P.S. Network settings of the workstation

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8102E/RTL8103E Family PCI-E Fa
st Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 90-E6-BA-BD-87-20
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.124(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, December 11, 2013 2:56:39 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, December 13, 2013 5:20:41 PM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Best Answer

It appears you are using a basic router/gateway device as your Gateway, DHCP and most importantly DNS (192.168.1.1).

Assuming that, then that router is not a real DNS server, and is actually just forwarding your DNS requests to the DNS server setup in the WAN-side of the router.

Since the router is not a real DNS server it has no name (or at least it doesn't report a name when queried), so NSLookup doesn't know its name and instead reports "unknown" as the name.

Try using a specific DNS server with NSlookup, like say Google's (8.8.8.8):

nslookup - 8.8.8.8

(using - instead of a host name puts NSLookup into interactive mode like just a plain nslookup does, except using Google's DNS server for queries).

That command should return something more like what you expect:

Default Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8

Your question "Could it be the reason why I cannot ping the Domain Controller by its full name?" is hard to answer, as you haven't provided any real information on the setup of your network. If you are trying to setup an actual Active Directory domain, and contact an actual AD "Domain Controller", then you need to reconfigure this client to properly use the AD-integrated resources (DNS, DHCP, etc.) instead of the gateway device.

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