You can use root hints to prepare servers that are authoritative for nonroot zones so that they can discover authoritative servers that manage domains at a higher level or in other subtrees of the DNS domain namespace. These root hints are essential for servers that are authoritative at lower levels of the namespace when they locate and find other servers under these conditions.

Membership in the Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477.

To update root hints on the DNS server

  1. Open DNS Manager.

  2. In the console tree, click the applicable DNS server.

    Where?

    • DNS/applicable DNS server

  3. On the Action menu, click Properties.

  4. Click the Root Hints tab.

  5. Modify server root hints as follows:

    • To add a root server to the list, click Add, and then specify the name and IP address of the server to be added to the list.

    • To modify a root server in the list, click Edit, and then specify the name and IP address of the server to be modified in the list.

    • To remove a root server from the list, select it in the list, and then click Remove.

    • To copy root hints from a DNS server, click Copy from server, and then specify the IP address of the DNS server from which you want to copy a list of root servers to use in resolving queries. These root hints will not overwrite any existing root hints.

Additional considerations

  • To open DNS Manager, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click DNS.

Additional references

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