[Frozen11b]

I’m having an issue with 3 xp pc’s in my network loosing connectivity to the file server. There are 4 network drives mapped to a win 2k3 server, when the user logs in everything is fine, after a while the network drives become unreachable and gives the following error

“An error accrued while reconnecting (drive letter) to \\server\share
Microsoft windows network: The local device is already in use
The connection has not been restarted”

This happens from any user on only 3 boxes. The rest of the network is fine. These 3 are networked via a switch, I swapped that out for another hoping that might fix it, but nothing.

The other odd thing is the same time that the network drives error out it seems that DNS stops resolving anything outside my network. I can still ping the router and other pc’s on the LAN but DNS fails to resolve any names for IE, and nothing outside the LAN can be pinged, no Google, no 8.8.8.8. How ever restarting fixes the issue for a short while.

There have been no network changes and all systems are fully up to date as far as patches go. I was thinking it’s got to be a ether a DNS issue (the file server is also the Active Directory Domain controller) or something in to do with the router/fire wall we use (it’s a Cisco ASA 5005).

Any thoughts or ideas on this would be great.

 

[Wand3r3r]

Assuming this is a proper dns setup where all the workstation point to the server for dns and the dns server has the isp dns servers listed in the forwarders tab, I would suspect tha ASA is the problem.

But you have network drives disconnecting which is solely a server/lan issue and has nothing to do with the firewall since this connection to the drives never goes thru the firewall.

Lets start with a ipconfig /all from the server and one of the workstations losing the network drives for review.

 

[Frozen11b]

Here is the Ipconfig /all results. It looks correct as far as I can see.

Workstation
Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : PC-SON004

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Sonoran.inc

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : Sonoran.inc



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1E-C9-38-AB-2A

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.144

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.118

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Monday, March 21, 2011 9:03:41 AM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, March 21, 2011 10:03:41 AM

Server



Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : sonoransvr01

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Sonoran.inc

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : Sonoran.inc



Ethernet adapter To Apache:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom BCM5708C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBD Client)

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-19-B9-CE-6E-4B

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.66

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 127.0.0.1



Ethernet adapter Sonoran Main:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom BCM5708C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBD Client) #2

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-19-B9-CE-6E-4D

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.118

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.11.12.118

 

[Wand3r3r]

what is up with the apache adapter? It's ip addressing is all wrong.

what is up with this?
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

Are you routing between the apache nic and the server nic? Appears so and that would be a problem since the apache nic is misconfigured.

Did you engage ICS or RRAS on the server?

 

[Wand3r3r]

I suspect the server is confused as to where the dns request should go.

When a wkst makes a dns request it sends it to the AD dns server. If the server doesn't know [like a request for yahoo.com] it looks at its forwarders and send the request to the identified in the forwarders dns server.

This request would normally go back out the nic it came in and would be sent to the gateway.

You have routing engaged to an invalid ip not connected to the internet. I suspect this is the cause of your dns issue