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Event ID 6535 — DNS Server Zone Transfer

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Applies To: Windows Server 2008

Domain Name System (DNS) enhances fault tolerance and load balancing by providing for server redundancy. For any given zone, a DNS server can act as a primary master server, which is the authority for a zone, or as a secondary server, which obtains its zone data from the zone's primary master server or another secondary server. This process is known as zone transfer.

Event Details

Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 6535
Source: Microsoft-Windows-DNS-Server-Service
Version: 6.0
Symbolic Name: DNS_EVENT_IXFR_UNSUPPORTED
Message: The master DNS server at %2 responded to IXFR (Incremental Zone Transfer) request for zone %1 with an invalid (FORMAT ERROR) response. DNS server performance and network bandwidth will both be improved by upgrading the DNS server at %2 to a run as either a Windows 2000 or later Microsoft DNS server or another IXFR-compatible DNS server implementation.

Resolve

Confirm the service version

Check the source DNS server and confirm that it is running the DNS Server service on at least Windows 2000 Server or another DNS server implementation that is compatible with incremental zone transfer (IXFR).

Verify

Verify that all DNS servers that are authoritative for a zone have the same serial number for the zone.

To view the serial number for a zone:

  1. On the DNS server, open DNS Manager. To open DNS Manager, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click DNS.
  2. In the console tree, right-click DNS, and then click Connect to DNS Server.
  3. Click The following computer, type the DNS name or IP address of the authoritative DNS server, and then click OK.
  4. In the console tree, expand the DNS server, and then expand the folder that contains the zone.
  5. Right-click the zone, and then click Properties.
  6. Click the Start of Authority tab, and note the value in Serial number.

Note: If dynamic updates are enabled for the zone, or if an administrator changes the zone between the time that you check the master and secondary servers, the serial number on the master server can be slightly higher than the number on secondary servers.

DNS Server Zone Transfer

DNS Infrastructure