Configuring Zone Properties Tutorial Home >Operating Systems >Windows 2000 >Windows 2000 Server Administration >Setting Up a DNS Server >Configuring Zone Properties   Step 1:  Open the DNS Console Select DNS from the Start menu's Programs/Administrative Tools group to display the DNS console.   Step 2:  Open the Properties Box Highlight a zone in the console tree or details pane and select the Properties command from the Action menu, or from the zone's contect menu, to open the Properties dialog box.   Step 3:  Configuring General Options On the General page of the Properties dialog box, you can check the current status of the zone, pause it while you make changes to its configuration, and change its type. You can specify whether the DNS resource record updates received from domain controllers must be secured. You can also set its aging and scavenging properties, which control how long data is retained in the DNS server's cache.   Step 4:  Configuring the SOA Record On the Start of Authority (SOA) page, you can configure the properties of the zone's SOA resource record. Every zone must have a Start of Authority (SOA) record that identifies the authoritative server for the zone and the person responsible for it. You can also modify settings that control the frequency of zone transfers and the default Time to Live (TTL) value for the zone.   Step 5:  Specifying Name Servers On the Name Servers page, you specify the servers that are authoritative for the zone. Click the Add button to select a new server and add it to the list.   Step 6:  Configuring WINS Options On the WINS page, you can configure the DNS server to use the Windows Internet Name Service to resolve names that can't be resolved by the DNS. WINS is a NetBIOS name server that performs roughly the same function as DNS, but for NetBIOS names instead of DNS names. To use WINS in this manner, click the Use WINS Forward Lookup checkbox and specify the IP addresses of your WINS servers by entering an address in the field provided and clicking the Add button.   Step 7:  Configuring Zone Transfers On the Zone Transfers page, you can specify which servers should be used for zone transfers. A zone transfer is a replication of DNS data from one DNS server to another. Zone transfers make it possible for administrators to update the data on only one DNS server and have the information copied to all of the other server's for the zone.   Step 8:  Setting Permissions On the Security page, you can specify which users and groups have permissions to modify the attributes of the zone object in the Active Directory. This page appears only if the zone is of the Active Directory-Integrated type.