Use PowerShell to Troubleshoot Client DNS

Doctor Scripto

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to troubleshoot client DNS. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It seems that when I travel invariably at some point on the trip I end up in a hotel that has DNS issues. In the past, that meant opening up the CMD prompt and typing a bunch of cryptic commands. Not anymore. On my Windows 8 laptop (and even on my Windows Surface RT), I can use functions from the dnsclient module to do my troubleshooting. Of course, with Windows PowerShell 3.0 (which comes on Windows 8, Windows Surface, and Windows Server 2012) knowing what module contains what function (or cmdlet) is not required.

Viewing the DNS client settings

If I am experiencing connectivity issues, and I suspect a DNS issue, one of the first things I do is check to see what DNS server my device uses. To find this information, I use the Get-DNSClient function. This command is shown here.

19:09 C:> Get-DnsClient

 InterfaceAlias     Interface ConnectionSpecificSuffix ConnectionSpecificSuffixSearchList

————–               ——— ———————— ——————–

Local Area Connection* 14           33                          {}

vEthernet (WirelessSwitch)          31 owv.atl.wayport.net      {}

isatap.owv.atl.wayport.net          44 owv.atl.wayport.net      {}

Local Area Connection* 12           25                          {}

vEthernet (InternalSwitch)          19                          {}

isatap.{FC2087E9-6988-45E…        40                          {}

Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1          1                          {}

Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-I…        34                          {}

6TO4 Adapter                        39                          {}   The preceding output is a bit much. In fact, it is too much to read. One easy way to filter the output is to display only the connections that have a connection suffix. This command is shown here.

19:09 C:> Get-DnsClient | ? connectionspecificsuffix

InterfaceAlias               Interface ConnectionSpecificSuffix ConnectionSpecificSuffixSearchList

————–               ——— ———————— ——————–

vEthernet (WirelessSwitch)          31 owv.atl.wayport.net      {}

isatap.owv.atl.wayport.net          44 owv.atl.wayport.net      {}   If I want to see the network adapters associated with the particular network interface, I pipe the results to the Get-NetAdapter function. This command is shown here.

Note   Interface 44 does not exist on my laptop and an error appears. To avoid the errors, specify an erroraction of 0.

19:10 C:> Get-DnsClient | ? connectionspecificsuffix | Get-NetAdapter

Get-NetAdapter : No MSFT_NetAdapter objects found with property ‘InterfaceIndex’

equal to ’44’.  Verify the value of the property and retry.

At line:1 char:46

+ Get-DnsClient | ? connectionspecificsuffix | Get-NetAdapter

+                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (44:UInt32) [Get-NetAdapter], CimJobE

   xception

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CmdletizationQuery_NotFound_InterfaceIndex,Get-NetAda

   pter

 

 

Name                      InterfaceDescription                    ifIndex Status

—-                      ——————–                    ——- ——

vEthernet (WirelessSwi… Hyper-V Virtual Ethernet Adapter #4          31 Up

Use PowerShell to check the DNS cache

Once I see that I have a valid DNS server assigned, I decide to view my DNS cache. I use the Get-DNSCache function as shown here.

Note   Using the Get-DnsClientCache does not require Admin permissions.

19:12 C:> Get-DnsClientCache

Entry                     RecordNameType                Record Status    Section TimeToLive

—–                     ———-                —— ——    ——- ——

sxp.microsoft.com         sxp.microsoft.com         CNAME  Success   Answer       4

ajax.aspnetcdn.com        ajax.aspnetcdn.com        CNAME  Success   Answer     293

www.facebook.com          www.facebook.com          CNAME  Success   Answer      53 There are a couple of things important here. One is the TTL—that is the time-to-live of the record and it lets me know that the spx.microsoft.com record will be present in my DNS cache for 4 seconds. The www.facebook.com record will live for 53 seconds. A CNAME record is a canonical name record, or an alias for a DNS domain. Knowing this information is useful because it lets me know that the domain name I see is not the “actual name” of the server. If using the CNAME to connect to the server does not work, I know where to go to see if the server is even up. Here is an example of a CNAME record. I found this by piping a specific entry from the Get-DNSCLientCache to the Format-List cmdlet and, thereby, permitting me to view all of the information. The actual server name exists in the data property. I use the following code to obtain the complete information.

12:35 C:> (Get-DnsClientCache)[0] | fl *

 TTL                   : 169

Caption               :

Description           :

ElementName           :

InstanceID            :

Data                  : prod.us.moneycentral.money.glbdns.microsoft.com

DataLength            : 8

Entry                 : moneycentral.msn.com

Name                  : moneycentral.msn.com

Section               : 1

Status                : 0

TimeToLive            : 169

Type                  : 5

PSComputerName        :

CimClass              : ROOT/StandardCimv2:MSFT_DNSClientCache

CimInstanceProperties : {Caption, Description, ElementName, InstanceID…}

CimSystemProperties   : Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimSystemProperties

Finding missing records

The cool thing about using the Get-DnsClientCache Windows PowerShell cmdlet is that it is PowerShell, and as such, it returns objects. This means an easily parsable output. In the output below, several records are not available—this can obviously cause problems.

12:51 C:> Get-DnsClientCache

Entry             RecordNameType       Record Status    Section TimeToLive                                                                

—–                     ———-                —— ——    ——- ——

ots.optimize.webtrends… ots.optimize.webtrends… CNAME  Success   Answer     100

_ldap._tcp.charlottesi…                           SRV    NoRecords

_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.i…                           SRV    NoRecords

<output truncated> But in a long listing of the DNS client cache, identifying all of the missing records is a bit of a challenge. Therefore, it makes sense to filter the output via the Where-Object. This technique is shown here.

12:55 C:> Get-DnsClientCache | ? status -eq ‘NoRecords’

12:55 C:> The problem, unfortunately, is that no records return. The reason is because this is one of those occasions where the actual returned data does not match with the display data—in other words, I am attempting to filter on something that does not exist. To get to the bottom of the problem, I need to see the raw data. I can do that by piping the output to the Format-List cmdlet and viewing all of the properties. This technique is shown here.

12:55 C:> Get-DnsClientCache | Format-List -Property * -Force

TTL                   : 0

Caption               :

Description           :

ElementName           :

InstanceID            :

Data                  :

DataLength            : 0

Entry                 : _ldap._tcp.charlottesite._sites.dc._msdcs.iammred.net

Name                  :

Section               : 0

Status                : 9501

TimeToLive            : 0

Type                  : 33

PSComputerName        :

CimClass              : ROOT/StandardCimv2:MSFT_DNSClientCache

CimInstanceProperties : {Caption, Description, ElementName, InstanceID…}

CimSystemProperties   : Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimSystemProperties I examine the output and see that the status is 9501 and not NoRecords. Once I change my Where-Object filter, I obtain exactly the output I expected. Here is the modified command and its associated output.

12:58 C:> Get-DnsClientCache | ? status -eq 9501

Entry                     RecordNameType                Record Status    Section TimeToLive

—–                     ———-                —— ——    ——- ——

_ldap._tcp.charlottesi…                           SRV    NoRecords

_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.i…                           SRV    NoRecords

_ldap._tcp.5765f6d1-cb…                           SRV    NoRecords

  12:58 C:> Join me tomorrow when I will talk some more about using Windows PowerShell to troubleshoot DNS issues on the client side. I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace. Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy

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