Configuring On-Box DNS Load-Balancing in Clustered ONTAP

The following post runs though configuring On-Box DNS Load-Balancing in Clustered ONTAP in 2 steps:

Step 1 - Configuration of the DNS Zone on the SVM (using a simple example to demonstrate this)

Step 2 - Configuring a DNS Delegation in Windows Server 2008 R2 DNS

Step 1 of 2: Configuration of the DNS Zone on the SVM

We have a SVM (Storage Virtual Machine) NASVM01.lab.priv with two data LIFs. Currently the LIFs are not configured with a DNS zone as below:

NACLU01::> net int show -fields dns-zone,listen-for-dns-query -vserver NASVM01.lab.priv

 vserver          lif  dns-zone listen-for-dns-query

---------------- ---- -------- --------------------

NASVM01.lab.priv lif1 none     false

NASVM01.lab.priv lif2 none     false

We configure a DNS zone NASVM01-LB.lab.priv with the commands:

NACLU01::> net int modify -vserver NASVM01.lab.priv -lif lif1 -dns-zone NASVM01-LB.lab.priv

NACLU01::> net int modify -vserver NASVM01.lab.priv -lif lif2 -dns-zone NASVM01-LB.lab.priv

And that’s that, super simple - one command per LIF and we’ve configured DNS Load-Balancing on the SVM!

NACLU01::> net int show -fields dns-zone,listen-for-dns-query -vserver NASVM01.lab.priv

vserver          lif  dns-zone            listen-for-dns-query

---------------- ---- ------------------- --------------------

NASVM01.lab.priv lif1 NASVM01-LB.lab.priv true

NASVM01.lab.priv lif2 NASVM01-LB.lab.priv true

Step 2 of 2: Configuring a DNS Delegation for CDOT On-Box Load-Balancing

Our DNS domain is called lab.priv and we want to create a delegation for NASVM01-LB.lab.priv.

Note: We cannot use conditional forwarders in this instance since our NASVM01-LB.lab.priv is effectively a child DNS domain of lab.priv.

In DNS Manager (using Windows Server 2008 R2), right-click the lab.priv Forward Lookup Zone and select ‘New Delegation...’

Image 1: DNS Manager in Windows Server 2008 R2

New Delegation Wizard: Welcome...

Click Next >

New Delegation Wizard: Delegated Domain Name

Specify NASVM01-LB as the delegated domain

Click Next >

Image 2: NDW - Delegated Domain Name

New Delegation Wizard: Name Servers

Add... the IP Addresses of the two data LIFs as name servers for the delegated zone (can use the IP address for ‘Server fully qualified domain name (FQDN)’ and ‘IP Addresses of this NS record’)

Click Next >

Image 3: NDW - Name Servers

New Delegation Wizard: Completing...

Click Finish

Image 4: NDW - Complete

The DNS delegation of NASVM01-LB.lab.priv in the DNS domain lab.priv is complete.

Image 5: DNS Manager and the Delegated Zone NASVM01-LB.lab.priv

Testing

Test by pinging NASVM01-LB.lab.priv multiple times:

C:\Users\netappadmin2>ping NASVM01-LB.lab.priv

Pinging NASVM01-LB.lab.priv [10.0.9.21] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 10.0.9.21 ...

C:\Users\netappadmin2>ping NASVM01-LB.lab.priv

Pinging NASVM01-LB.lab.priv [10.0.9.22] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 10.0.9.22 ...