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Enable Event Logging in Windows DNS Server

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There are times when you may want to capture the trail of events happening in the DNS server. It could be for audit, troubleshooting, or other purpose. Whatever that is, you need to ensure that the DNS server is capable of running the DNS event logging service. Windows DNS server has this capability by default. In this post, we’re going to learn to Enable Event Logging in Windows DNS Server. After installing DNS server, enabling event logging is one of the most important task to do.

How to Enable Event Logging in Windows DNS Server

Enabling event logging in Windows DNS Server is very easy. You start by opening the DNS server properties in DNS Manager console. Right click on the DNS server name and select Properties.

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Go to the Event Logging tab, and make the selection of how you want the DNS event logging to run.

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You can choose any of the available options depending on your needs. There are four options which explanations are shown below:



  • No events — This option disables the DNS event logging service. You don’t select this option unless you want to turn off the DNS logging for some reason.
  • Errors only — This option will log only the DNS error message. Good option if you just want to view error events in the DNS server and working on the corrective actions for that.
  • Errors and warning — This option will log both DNS error and warning messages. You can have more visibility of the DNS events and may catch a warning before an error actually occurs. Good option if you want to prepare some preventive actions.
  • All events — This option will log all DNS events, including the informational ones. This will be the most detailed logging. Good option if you want to follow the complete trail of a DNS event.

The “All events” option is the default selection. Therefore if the DNS server is a fresh install, you may not need to enable event logging in Windows DNS server because it is already enabled. However, you can still go through the above steps to make sure.

Examining DNS Logs in Event Viewer

When event logging has been configured, you can see the logged events on the Event Viewer snap-in. Go to Event Viewer > Application and Services Logs > DNS server.

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Any DNS events will be listed here depending on how you configure them. If the server is configured to log “all events”, then you can see all kind of logs such as informational, warning, and error messages.

You can click on the event name to see the event details such as event ID, the description, timestamp, error code, and all the information that can be useful for troubleshooting.

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With all this information in the event logs, we can quickly identify any problem in the DNS server, fix the problem and prevent it from happening again. Now you can see why it is important to enable event logging in Windows DNS server.




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Arranda Saputra

ITIL Certified, CCNA, CCDA, VCP6-DCV, MCSA Administering Windows Server 2012
I am IT practitioner in real life with specialization in network and server infrastructure. I have years of experience in design, analysis, operation, and optimization of infrastructure solutions for enterprise-scaled network. You can send me a message on LinkedIn or email to arranda.saputra@outlook.com for further inquiry regarding stuffs that I wrote or opportunity to collaborate in a project.
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