AD System Discovery and DNS Work Around

[jygoman]

Does anyone know if there's a work around for discovering client computers when they are not registered to DNS?

 

For my method of discovery I have enabled AD system group discovery, AD security group discovery, AD system discovery, AD user discovery, and heart beat discovery. So far the only thing that is discovered are my servers, users, and group security. It fails to discovery my desktop computers in my domain OUs. Is there any other way I can get them discovered if they are not register to DNS? I can ping and resolved the desktop computers via WINS from my SCCM site server. As far as I know everything is installed and configured correctly on the site server. Site system status are in the green. My system info below.

• Single site primary
  
• mixed mode
  
• SCCM 2007 R3\Windows 2008 R2
  
• Schema extension applied
  
• Boundaries are set to AD type
  

My desktop computers are mixed Win XP/7 32/64bit

[Trevor Sullivan]

Hello,

 

Why are your workstations not registered in DNS? Having a properly working DNS infrastructure is critical to many things, and most importantly, Active Directory. I would recommend resolving the DNS resolution issue and then trying the discovery again.

 

"Use Configuration Manager Active Directory System Discovery to search the specified Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) locations for computer resources that can be used to create collections and queries. You can then install the client to discovered computers by using client push installation. To successfully create a discovery data record (DDR) for a computer, Active Directory System Discovery must be able to identify the computer account and then successfully resolve the computer name to an IP address.

By default, Active Directory System Discovery discovers basic information about the computer including the following:

• Computer name
  
• Operating system and version
  
• Active Directory container name
  
• IP address
  
• Active Directory site
  
• Last Logon Timestamp
  

In addition to the basic information, you can configure the discovery of extended attributes from Active Directory Domain Services.

You can view the default list of object attributes returned by Active Directory System Discovery, and configure additional attributes to be discovered in the Active Directory System Discovery Properties dialog box on the Active Directory Attributes tab.

For more information about how to configure this discovery method, see Configure Active Directory Discovery in Configuration Manager.

Active Directory System Discovery actions are recorded in the file adsysdis.log in the <InstallationPath>\LOGS folder on the site server."

 

From: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712308.aspx#BKMK_ADSystemDisc

 

Cheers,

Trevor Sullivan

http://trevorsullivan.net

http://twitter.com/pcgeek86

[jygoman]

We don't register our client desktops in DNS because in some computer labs we reimage them every night. Plus we don't not use Windows DNS service but rather Linux DNS. We use WINS to help resolve our client desktops. Is there another way I can get the client desktops discovered? Would network discovery work in this case?

[Kingen]

We don't register our client desktops in DNS because in some computer labs we reimage them every night. Plus we don't not use Windows DNS service but rather Linux DNS. We use WINS to help resolve our client desktops. Is there another way I can get the client desktops discovered? Would network discovery work in this case?

 

Then maybe Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, isn't the most optimal deployment solution for you. Sorry to say.

I would say network discovery will fix it for you but it generates a lot of network traffic and can be resource intensive, also it will find stuff outside your OU. But you can organize that in to groups later.