Configuring DNS servers on a Windows machine is a common task for systems administrators. PowerShell provides a powerful and efficient way to accomplish this using the Set-DnsClientServerAddress cmdlet. This cmdlet allows you to modify the DNS server addresses associated with a network interface.

Understanding the Basics

Before diving into examples, it's essential to understand the basic syntax of the Set-DnsClientServerAddress cmdlet. The primary parameters you'll use are:

• -InterfaceAlias: Specifies the network interface by name.
• -ServerAddresses: Specifies the DNS server addresses you want to assign.

Examples

1. View Current DNS Settings

   Before making changes, you might want to view the current DNS settings on your network interfaces. You can use the Get-DnsClientServerAddress cmdlet for this purpose.

   Get-DnsClientServerAddress

   This command will list all network interfaces and their associated DNS server addresses.

2. Set DNS Server for a Specific Interface

   Suppose you want to set the DNS server addresses for a network interface named "Ethernet" to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. You can use the following command:

   Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" -ServerAddresses ("8.8.8.8", "8.8.4.4")

   This command assigns the specified DNS server addresses to the "Ethernet" interface.

3. Set DNS Server for All Interfaces

   If you need to set the DNS server addresses for all network interfaces, you can loop through each interface and apply the changes:

   $dnsServers = @("8.8.8.8", "8.8.4.4")
   Get-NetAdapter | ForEach-Object {
      Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias $_.Name -ServerAddresses $dnsServers
   }

   This script retrieves all network adapters and sets the DNS server addresses to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for each one.

4. Reset DNS Server to Obtain Automatically

   If you want a network interface to obtain DNS server addresses automatically, you can set the -ServerAddresses parameter to ("0.0.0.0").

   Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" -ServerAddresses ("0.0.0.0")

   This command configures the "Ethernet" interface to obtain DNS server addresses automatically from the DHCP server.

Conclusion

Using PowerShell to configure DNS server addresses provides a flexible and scriptable approach, making it ideal for automating network configurations across multiple machines or interfaces. The Set-DnsClientServerAddress cmdlet is a powerful tool in a Windows systems engineer's toolkit.