When troubleshooting name resolution issues on a Windows client, NSlookup is an essential tool. However, it is important to understand that using NSlookup on a DirectAccess client might not always work as you expect. Although using NSlookup on a DirectAccess client will work normally when the client is on the corporate network, it will not provide the correct results to queries for internal hostnames when the DirectAccess client is outside of the corporate network without taking additional steps. This is because when a DirectAccess client is outside the corporate network, the Name Resolution Policy Table (NRPT) is enabled. The NRPT provides policy-based name resolution routing for DirectAccess clients, sending name resolution requests for certain namespaces to specific DNS servers. You can view the NRPT on a Windows 8.x DirectAccess client by issuing the following PowerShell command:

Get-DnsClientNrptPolicy

You can view the NRPT on a Windows 7 DirectAccess client by issuing the following netsh command:

netsh namespace show policy

Here you’ll notice that the namespace .lab.richardhicks.net is configured to use the DNS64 service running on the DirectAccess server at 2002:62bd:d898:3333::1. Notice also that the host nls.lab.richardhicks.net is not configured to use a DNS server. This effectively exempts this host from the NRPT, forcing name resolution requests for this Fully-Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) to be delivered to the DNS servers configured on the network adapter.

A Working Example

With the NRPT enabled, which occurs whenever the DirectAccess client is outside of the corporate network, a name resolution request for app1.lab.richardhicks.net would be sent to the DNS64 service on the DirectAccess server. A name resolution request for technet.microsoft.com would be sent to the DNS servers assigned to the network adapter because the NRPT contains no entry for this namespace. And even though the host nls.lab.richardhicks.net is a part of the internal namespace, a name resolution request for this host would also be sent to the DNS servers assigned to the network adapter because it has been specifically exempted from the NRPT.

NSlookup

The NSlookup utility is unaware of the NRPT. Whenever you use NSlookup it will, by default, automatically send queries directly to the DNS servers configured on the network adapter, regardless of the NRPT. If you wish to use NSlookup to test name resolution for external hostnames, use it as you normally would. However, if you wish to use NSlookup to resolve internal hostnames over the DirectAccess connection, you will need to tell NSlookup to use the DNS64 service running on the DirectAccess server. You can do this by running NSlookup interactively and using the server command to point it to the IPv6 address of the DNS64 service, which you can find in the NRPT.

This also applies to the PowerShell cmdlet Resolve-DNSname. Here you’ll use the -Server switch to specify the DNS64 server’s IPv6 address.

Resolve-DNSName –Server <DNS64_IPv6_Address> app1.lab.richardhicks.net