Domain Not Available

[Steelheads]

This might be a question for the VMWare forum (or even Microsoft!), but what the heck, I'll start here.

I have two DC's, both DNS servers. One is virtualized, the other not. I have both listed in the DNS override in the VPN settings (the physical DC is the Primary IP). OpenVPN works great, can connect to any box, etc. But this morning I loaded some updates on the physical DC, rebooted and while rebooting I tried signing on to another server via Remote Desktop and I kept getting a "Domain Not Available". Obviously related to the rebooting DC. I waited for the DC to come up and I disconnected, reconnected VPN and signed in just fine. This might be a stupid question, but shouldn't the other DC validate me to sign on? Is this at all related to the DNS override? I did not try disconnecting and reconnecting VPN while the physical DC was rebooting to see if the virtual DC would validate.

I've verified replication is fine, the time synchro between DC's is fine. No other errors on either DC.

Now that I'm typing this out, I'm thinking I'm barking up the wrong tree and it might be a VMWare issue with OpenVPN?

[sky-knight]

OpenVPN has issues with Microsoft authentication to begin with. Be default this happens over UDP and tends to fall apart over any type of VPN. There is a registry hack to make it work over TCP that can help.

In theory yes, your secondary DC virtual or not should have been authenticating your sessions. If it isn't I suggest you start with your DNS configuration. It is very easy to get that goofed and not have the secondary DC show up when requested.