My question is very general because I am very new to all of this, please ignore my ignorance :-).
I would like to establish a domain that is apart of an active directory for an intranet. I would like to establish a webserver that can host ASP.NET pages for this domain in both internet and intranet settings. I would like to use Exchange as an email server for this domain on the internet.
I have tried this once and failed miserably! Let me tell you what I've tried.
I registered the domain praeclarum.org (currently points to a webhosting company). I installed Server2003. I named the computer SOLOMON. I made it a domain controller for praeclarum.org. I learned that it needed a DNS server, so I set that up too. However, I did not setup a reverse lookup table becuse I couldn't figureout the right settings (should I give public IP or router assigned IP, I know, I'm pathetic). I setup IIS to run with a default site. I renamed my zone because that seemed simple enough. During all of this, I received two errors/warnings. One stated that setting up DNS with a dynamic IP is a BAD idea. I clicked through since I really had no idea what else to do. The other stated that praeclarum.org's name servers were not correct (I honestly can't remember the exact error).
So I created one user account and joined an XP machine to the domain (PRAECLARUM). That worked! I could even view the web page by going to \\solomon. Nice! I then tried to setup folder redirection for My Documents as outlined in the book "The Ultimate Windows Server2003 Adminstration Guide". No errors, but the XP machine refused to use the network path for My COMputer. Also, it then took _absolutely forever_ for the XP machine to login to the domain. Obviously something was amiss, but I had no idea what.
I came to the conclusion that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even try pointing my domain to my computer for DNS. I didn't try installing Exchange either.
I have heard that it is a "bad idea" to have the DNS server and webserver/DC as the same machine. COupled with the fact that I have a dynamic IP it probably is a "really bad idea". So I am happy to use a service such as DynDNS. I just am tired of not knowing exactly what I am doing.
Please can someone give me tips/links/words of wisdom to accomplish my goals? I would really like a nice private intranet but also all the wonder of a proper internet server. I really want my domain name of praeclarum.org.
Thankyou very much!
2. It is a "bad idea" to have a lot of services on your computer for security reasons and CPU usage reasons. But that isn't your problem with your first installation
3. It is typically better, especially in your situation, to have TWO seperate DNS.. one for Internal and one for External. For example, you might want to call your Internal LAN (Active Directory Domain) praeclarum.local. Then setup a praeclarum.org DNS (not active-directory-integrate
So... what you need to do is:
1. Get a router and either forward port 80, etc to your Internal server (i.e. 192.168.1.100, for example), or just do the DMZ thing and forward all traffice to 192.168.1.100.
2. Assign a static IP of 192.168.1.100 (or something like that) to your server. Install DNS, then make it a DC. On the DNS setup, make sure that it can forward DNS queries to your External ISP's DNS server... So anything being resolved for your internal network will be hosted by your DC, but anything outside will be answered by your ISP.
3. Join your other workstations to the Domain. Make sure the workstations' DNS entry is pointed to the DC instead. You're going to have a lot of problems if the DNS is pointed, somehow, to a public DNS server.
In a nut shell, I think that is all you need to do to get yourself up and running. In the long run, you might want to consider moving some of the services to another server, to spread out the risk.
- Info